


Concerning the Regular Miracles

by jinlinli



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Academic!Bucky, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Non-Human!Steve, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Red String of Fate, Sharing a Bed, Volcanoes, witch!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 09:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli
Summary: Bucky loses his soulmate and finds the next best thing.Steve never had a soulmate and finds that maybe that doesn’t mean he has to be alone.





	Concerning the Regular Miracles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earthseraph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseraph/gifts), [psifiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psifiend/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Concerning the Regular Miracles (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16211996) by [earthseraph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseraph/pseuds/earthseraph). 
  * Inspired by [Concerning the Regular Miracles - Art By Psi Fiend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207676) by [psifiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psifiend/pseuds/psifiend). 



> This has been a fic I've been wanting to write for years now. I'm so glad to finally be bringing this idea to life, and I hope that you all enjoy it too! I've been thinking about soulmates for a very long time, and this fic feels like the culmination of all those years of mulling this trope over.
> 
> I would like to thank my two wonderful artists, [sorrowingsoldier](http://sorrowingsoldier.tumblr.com) and [psifiend](http://psifiend.tumblr.com). You both have very busy lives, and I'm so happy and honored that you took the time to create art for this fic. It's been an absolute joy to work with you! Each of you has such a unique style and approach to your respective mediums, and it was truly humbling to see how your processes on creating art. <3
> 
> I'm so grateful to [Rachel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningByDegrees/pseuds/DrowningByDegrees) for your betaing work. We're really so similar when it comes to our thought processes on writing fic, and I feel like you can always read my mind and know exactly what I'm trying to accomplish and how to get there. Thank you!
> 
> [Gerry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivereader/pseuds/obsessivereader), thank you so much for your patience with me, and talking the ideas for this fic through with me in the early stages. I always enjoy our conversations so much, and I come away from them a more thoughtful and deliberate writer than when I enter them.

Bucky takes a breath when his car pulls to a stop in the gravel lot outside a small wooden building. It’s a humble construction—more a cabin than anything else. The paint is flaking off a little on the edges, revealing the rough-hewn wood underneath. There’s a little sign hanging above the door that says, “Lua Pele Volcano National Park Visitor Center”. 

It’s honestly nothing like the buildings Bucky has known all his life—the lighter-than-air skyscrapers brushing up against the clouds, their foundations supported by nothing more than meticulous spellwork and ingenuity. He’s never felt like more of a city kid out of his depth than in this moment, sitting here, staring at a wooden building built into the ground. 

But that’s what he needs right now.

He needs to be away from the coastal cities of New England, away from the heady cloying mess of a thousand different magics mingling in the air. Away from his colleagues, his work deadlines, his shoebox apartment. Away from _her._ His knuckles are white against the steering wheel, the lurid brightness of his red string impossible to ignore. Where it had once been held aloft by his connection to his soulmate, it now droops limply to the ground. Disconnected. Detached. Severed.

Bucky takes another breath and pushes open the car door. Gravel crunches under his boot, and for a moment, he has to stand still, the ambient magic from the volcano caldera nearly bowling him over with its immensity. He’s encountered raw natural magic before, but nothing like _this_. He can feel it pressing in from miles around, thrumming under his feet, the heat of it almost a tangible presence against his skin. New York’s magic had been large in its own way, but it was born of millions of smaller magical presences mingling to form a larger whole. What he feels now is from one enormous source. 

Bucky breathes slowly through his nose for long minutes until he’s adjusted to the presence of the volcano. Then he makes his way to the door of the visitor center, the bell chiming when he pushes it open. There are two people already inside, their auras humming a pleasant counterpoint to the overwhelming magic of the volcano. The woman is standing in front of the help desk. Bucky coughs from the sudden tickling in his throat, the taste of moss and thyme on the back of his tongue. A druid. She gestures animatedly as she talks to the man ringing up her purchase.

“—just saying, it’s _impossible_ to find decent ritual salts these days. The western salt flats in Utah are an absolute scam, I tell you.”

“I’ve heard Mortons does decently in a pinch,” the man says absently as he bags her lightning-in-a-bottle charm.

“Oh _sure_ ,” the druid huffs exaggeratedly, “like I would ever buy that artificial processed crap. I’ve been using Himalayan rock salt, but taxes on them are just obscene.” Her elbow bumps against the kitschy display of keychains, nearly knocking it over. The man doesn’t even look up when he reaches out to steady it before it tips over entirely.

Bucky shifts his attention away and wanders around, letting them finish without him hovering. The visitor center has probably seen better days. Most of the information displays are sun-faded, and the stuffed birds depicting the local wildlife have lost most of their feathers. There’s a corner next to the help desk set aside for the ‘gift shop’, but it’s really just a limited assortment of water-damaged postcards, fake good luck charms, and refrigerator magnets. Next to the door, there’s a bin of  disposable face masks with clear air wards stitched on them. Presumably for the days when the volcanic smoke gets particularly bad.

The handful of cooling charms scattered around the ceiling are so old and faded, Bucky can barely feel them. He taps a mosquito repellent ward on the window sill and feels it stir under his touch. The spellwork is clean, solid, and so generic he can’t get a read at all on the person who cast it.

“Your change is five dollars and sixty-four cents,” Bucky hears the man say with the same beleaguered boredom of just about every retail cashier in the country. He winces sympathetically.

The druid takes her change and her bottled lightning. “I’ve been thinking of trying Hawaiian sea salt. That’s a part of the United States, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“No tariffs on those,” she muses.

“Thank you for your patronage. Have a good day,” the man says firmly.

Finally, the druid takes the hint and bustles out of the visitor center to her little blue car parked outside. Bucky watches the car pull away, the taste of herbs slowly fading from his tongue.

“Welcome to the Lua Pele Volcano National Park Visitor Center, how may I help you?”

Bucky turns around to face him, his ears going a little hot from being caught out while distracted. The man is leaning forward with his arms crossed on top of the help desk. Now that the louder, more overbearing presence of the witch is gone, Bucky can start to get a sense for the other man’s magic. There isn’t much to go on though. There’s the fleeting sensation of cool stone pressed against his cheek, of running water carving paths down the face of a mountain. Unassuming but stubborn. 

The man has the kind of features that should be unusual but fit together to construct an unremarkable brand of handsome. His hair is limp from sweat and humidity, and his uniform collar sticks to his neck. His limbs have an awkward coltishness to them that makes him seem younger than he probably actually is. There’s a laminated name tag clipped to his shirt. Steve Rogers.

“Hi, uhh, I’m Bucky,” he says. Because he really doesn’t know what else to say. 

Steve’s eyes flick over him and his mouth purses together. “Which university are you with?” he says with a sigh.

Bucky blinks dumbly at him. He hadn’t really thought his appearance screamed ‘reclusive scholar’, but maybe it was worse than he thought. He’d deliberately gone out of his way to ditch the elbow pads and button-ups for this little excursion. If anything, Bucky’s dressed in the T-shirt, khakis, and hiking boots of a backpacker. He’d even let his beard grow out a little scraggly, and tied his hair up in a knot back and away from his face.

“I’m sorry?” he says.

A flicker of amusement passes over Steve’s face, his mouth ticking up into a smile. Some of the wards scattered around the room shiver in response, and if Bucky hadn’t already figured out who cast those spells, he definitely knows now. “Your magic gives you away,” Steve murmurs. “It’s well-maintained, every last drop of potential cultivated with the utmost care. So you’re educated. At the very least, a college man, but considering the fact that you’re a _thread witch_ , you’re probably staying in academia as long as you can.”

Bucky kinda stares at him shell-shocked for a few minutes. Because getting a read on someone’s magic like that is _rare_. Hell, he’s only forced himself to learn out of necessity because of his allergies to herbal magics. It’s really unpleasant getting caught off guard by a shaman who happens to be riding the same bus as him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Steve says. “It’s not that hard to spot once you know where to look. I’d be an idiot if I couldn’t put the pieces together.” He rolls his eyes. “So let me ask again, who’s funding you? It’s probably not government or military because they at least have the decency to _call ahead_.”

“Independent grant,” Bucky finally says.

Steve groans. “Figures,” he mutters to himself before saying to Bucky, “And let me guess you thought it’d be like a mini vacation. Break away from the daily grind, spend a weekend enjoying the fresh air and collecting volcanic samples, then skip on back to your cozy lab in the city.”

Bucky feels his cheeks flush hot with embarrassment. That was _exactly_ what he’d been planning. He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Uhh, yeah. Pretty much.”

Steve raps the top of a placard in front of him with the end of his pen. “I hate to break it to you, but you really should’ve done your homework before you accepted the grant. Our website makes our policies clear.”

The blood drains from Bucky’s face as he reads the sign. “I can’t take _any_ samples off site?”

“All research must be conducted on the caldera itself,” Steve says with a brusque professionalism. “The local goddess doesn’t take kindly to thieves, and she has a nasty habit of tacking horrific curses onto every moron who thinks they can take a chunk of basalt home for a souvenir.” He offers Bucky a sympathetic smile. “So basically, you’re stuck here.”

Bucky rolls his weight back on his heels as the information sinks in. He hadn’t been planning for this to be anything but a temporary escape. It’d pretty much been a thoughtless decision, spurred by the shock and heartache of the cutting of a red string. His therapist even had a special term for it—post-severance trauma. Symptoms include depressive episodes, mood swings, fear of abandonment, and low impulse control. Everything he’s feeling tied up in a neat little clinically clean box. 

It was just supposed to be a few days away from the gossip and platitudes of his colleagues. A new project to take his mind off of things. That’s all it was meant to be. But now he’s stuck out here for who knows how long.

Steve’s looking at him with an odd expression on his face. “You know, usually people start yelling by now.” His mouth widens into a sharp grin. “Or they nod their heads and try to walk away with their pockets full of volcanic slag anyway. Neither really works out for them though.”

“Is there a third option?” Bucky asks faintly.

“You could actually do your research and leave when you’re done,” Steve offers. “That would be a new one.”

That would mean months away from home, studying fibers on this lonely mountain with no one for company but this prickly man standing in front of him. It would mean leaving his other projects to languish in his workshop. But it’s not like the university was particularly generous with the stipend granted to him. Even without the purchasing of all the equipment necessary, the funds would likely dry up within the month from the cost of room and board alone. And the plan _was_ to escape it all.

“Alright,” he says. “Is there a place for me to stay on site, or do I need to rent a motel room at the village further down the mountain?”

For the first time in the whole conversation, Steve seems to be thrown off balance. He blinks up at Bucky for a moment before straightening up. “Ahh, well,” he says. “There are accommodations set aside for…guests.” He pushes away from the help desk and makes for the front door. “Follow me. You might as well see for yourself.”

The bell hanging on the lintel doesn’t make a sound when Steve passes through the door, but it does chime when Bucky leaves. An intruder charm, he thinks. But he doesn’t have the time to inspect the spellwork to confirm his theory. There’s a small dirt pathway worn between the scraggly grasses that they follow further up the mountain. The volcano’s magic booms distantly like a drum buried underground, but now that Bucky knows to expect it, the vastness of it isn’t nearly as overwhelming.

Steve slings his hands casually into his pockets as he walks. “So what would a thread witch want with a volcanic caldera of all places?” he calls over his shoulder.

“It’s mostly just a study on naturally occurring magic fibers,” Bucky says and shrugs.

Steve makes a comprehending noise. “You’re here for the goddess’s hair.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Bucky says, slinging his hands into his pockets. “It’s been known to have unusual properties, but the fibers themselves are almost impossible to find in the open market.”

“I wonder why,” Steve says with a snort.

Right, the curse. That’s quite a nasty business, but he hopes it won’t end up actually being a problem. “Do you know where I can find some?” Bucky asks.

“Oh sure, there’s tons of the stuff,” Steve says. “But it’s pretty much useless to you. You can study it all you want, but there’s no way a single strand of her hair is leaving this mountain. It’ll be a lot of time and effort for a material you’ll never be able to use in any sort of meaningful way.”

Bucky frowns. “There’s always curse surrogates.”

Steve stops and turns to look at Bucky before bursting out laughing. “You’ve never actually dealt with any of the old gods, have you? It’s written all over your face.” He shakes his head and starts walking again, still chuckling to himself.

“It’s a perfectly reasonable solution,” Bucky says, trying and failing to keep the indignation out of his voice. 

He doesn’t have to look to know that Steve’s already rolling his eyes. “This isn’t some low-grade hex a hedge witch sticks onto you after you cut her off at the supermarket queue. You can’t just pop on over to the twenty-four hour clinic for a curse surrogacy consult and an anti-boil salve. We’re talking deep-seated misfortune blights—the kind that can alter the entire course of a person’s fate. And it _spreads_. Like a fucking Old World plague.”

And that definitely sounds like something Bucky doesn’t ever want to mess with. “What happens to the people who don’t listen to the warnings?” he asks.

Steve glances back, arching an eyebrow. “What do you think? Every last pebble eventually finds their way back to the visitor center mailbox attached to a letter begging us to break the curse,” he says. “You do not want to fuck with a goddess as old and powerful as this one.”

 

* * *

 

“Home sweet home,” Steve declares as he jams a key into the rusted-over lock of the cabin door. There’s a horrible grinding sound as the lock pins turn for what seems like the first time in years. The room itself is a sight to behold. The sheets and curtains are grey with dust, and the whole place has an unpleasant mustiness to it. And there’s far too many suspicious stains on the wood panelling to be comforting. The far wall is stacked almost to the ceiling with cardboard boxes sealed shut with packing tape. There’s also a _taxidermied boar’s head_ leaning against the headboard.

“Uhh well,” Bucky says, making uncomfortable eye contact with the boar. “It’s nothing a few cleaning charms can’t clear up.” He coughs. “Probably.”

“I’d forgotten we were using this place for storage,” Steve mutters to himself. He looks at the boar with the antipathy of someone who’d happily forgotten its existence until it reappeared uninvited back into his life. Then to Bucky, “I guess you’re staying with me tonight.”

Bucky cocks an eyebrow and tears his eyes away from the boar’s glassy stare. “I mean, it should only be the work of an hour to tidy up. I could probably be settled by nightfall.”

Steve snorts. “You should be so lucky,” he says. “We’re only a few miles away from the volcano mouth which means we’re well within the range of the magic suppression wards. You won’t be able to cast so much as a simple dusting charm. They tamp down all free-floating magic as a safety precaution. Trust me, you don’t want to know how much damage one unstabilized spell can do up here with this much ambient fire magic in the air.”

Bucky stares at the mess with renewed dismay. “We have to clean all of this _by hand?_ ”

“Gods, you’re such a townie. A little dust won’t kill you,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “But anyway this is not a headache I want to deal with today, so you’re crashing on my couch for now. We can sort this out later.” He takes a step back, letting the door swing closed. “My house is well away from the most volatile parts of the volcano, but even then, I’d advise against using too much magic. Don’t want to overload the stabilization wards.”

They trek down the side of the mountain, but this time the walk is much shorter. Now that Bucky’s paying attention, he can actually feel when he passes over the outer boundary of the innermost layer of wards. The sensation reminds him of the feeling of a thin sheet brushing over his face as he ducks under a clothing line. There’s a subtle uncurling in his magic as the wards release their hold on him. He exhales slowly.

Steve’s house is tucked away in a small grove of trees midway between the visitor center and the guest cabin. It’s humbler than both of the aforementioned buildings but also nicer in a way. There’s no paint or paneling to cover the wood the house is constructed from, but the plain wood itself is beautiful. It’s some rich dark grain that Bucky’s never seen before and almost seems to glow with an internal light.

“Why are all the buildings here built from wood if you’re living on a volcano?” he asks as he runs his fingers along the smooth surface of the door frame. An odd sense of deja vu pings at the edges of his consciousness.

Steve shrugs. “Mostly because it gets obscenely hot here during the summer. Stone will just cook you alive in your own home.” He strolls inside, gesturing one-handedly for Bucky to follow him in. “And besides, how flammable your house is really doesn’t mean jack shit against two metric tons of lava pouring down the mountain.”

Bucky stops when he crosses the threshold, inhaling sharply.

The scent of wood smoke and dried rosemary is bizarrely familiar, even though he knows he’s never actually encountered such a combination in his life. He’s never smelled anything particularly strongly scented in the city, everything is the controlled neutrals of cleaning spells. Sometimes he catches the underlying whiffs of cooking food and a sort of mustiness in the seedier parts of town, but it’s muted. Easily ignorable. On the other hand, this is a place that’s been dusted and polished and scrubbed and filled with aromatics, but has never once been touched by a shred of cleaning magic.

There are fluorescent lightbulbs in the wall sconces and glass on the windows. The fine-mesh nets mounted over every entryway keep out mosquitos where there should be insect repellant wards. He can hear the barely there whine of a generator outside, and he doesn’t have to walk into the kitchen to know there’ll be a wood stove and a refrigerator that plugs into the wall. A house of foreign artifacts. It reflects a lifestyle almost completely devoid of magic.

And yet it all seems strangely familiar. Every nick and dent in the walls, every crooked nail driven into the wooden furniture, even the little scratches at the base of the front door from a feral cat that sometimes wanders by in search of food. He’s never physically set foot here, but he knows it like it’s a part of him.

“Bucky?” Steve is standing in front of him with a look of concern on his face.

“I—” Bucky blinks at him and realizes he has no idea how to even begin to explain what he’s feeling.

How do you tell someone that a place you’ve never been before feels like home? That a part of yourself you weren’t even aware has unwound for the first time in your life. That you want nothing more than to curl up under the hand-knitted quilts and stay there forever.

“Are you okay?” Steve says.

Bucky smiles wanly at him, pushing a hand into his pocket. It’s a paltry excuse for a casual gesture, but he finds himself oddly unbalanced. “It’s just the rosemary,” he lies. “I have allergies to some varieties of herbal magic.”

Steve looks at him for a moment longer before accepting the excuse. “I can throw it out if that helps.” He steps forward and collects the sprigs drifting in the bowls of still water scattered throughout the room. Bucky pretends it’s the allergies that are causing the slight splotchiness on his face, the unevenness in his breathing, the tightness of his mouth. Steve skirts carefully around him when he leaves to dump the rosemary outside.

The moment he’s outside and out of sight, Bucky fumbles out the length of string tucked in his pocket. It’s a simple cord of cotton twine. It would be mundane if it hadn’t ever been touched by a thread witch. He loops it around his fingers, twisting and weaving the pattern for Sight between his forefingers and thumbs. He brings the makeshift lattice up to his face and peers through the gaps formed by the thread. For a brief moment, the world flares so bright he has to close his eyes against it. But his sight eventually does adjust, and he can _See_.

There’s the jumble of muted silver and blue threads connecting him to his destiny, his family, his fortunes. The awful limpness of his red string compared to the healthy taut lines of his other fate threads. He can see the teals and yellows of the wards criss-crossing the entire mountain, the distant points of multi-colored light from the town at the base. The air, the ground, even the walls of the house are suffused with the red-orange glow of the volcano’s magic. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. No spellwork that might explain why he’s suddenly overcome with this inexplicable nostalgia.

He turns to look at where Steve is standing just outside the walls of the house. He shines with a strange golden light, his own web of tawny threads leading out and away from him in all directions. There are fewer of them than Bucky is used to seeing on a person, however. And there’s one thread in particular that’s _missing_.

Bucky drops his hands, and once again, his eyes can only see the physical. His breathing is harsh and loud in his own ears, nausea churning in his stomach. He spends long seconds trying to push down the horror welling up in his throat. The floorboards of the porch creak as Steve steps back toward the house, and he just barely manages to put a nonchalant expression on.

Bucky bites his tongue. For a moment, it’s all he can do not to _ask_. Because Steve’s red string is just _gone_. There isn’t even a little scrap of it tied to his hand like Bucky has. It’s like it never existed in the first place. He’d never even thought it was possible. That a human being could even survive without a red string. He wonders morbidly which of them got the worse end of the bargain—Steve who’s never had and will never know, or himself who knows exactly what it’s like to lose it.

But underneath the queasy horror, there’s another emotion creeping at the edges of his senses. That familiar all-consuming curiosity to know the why and the how. The smile he offers Steve when he reappears in the open doorway is steadier this time, even though he still feels shaky as hell.

“Right,” Bucky says, his voice a little hoarse, “So I guess I’ll take the couch?”

 

* * *

 

When Bucky wakes up the next morning, he lies on the makeshift couch bed for long minutes, staring at the snarled mess his red string had tangled itself into sometime during the night. Eventually, he sighs through his nose and sits up, setting to the now daily task of untangling and straightening it out.

He left the city to distract himself from his red string, and maybe to find a project worth immersing himself into. And here’s a genuine enigma landed right in his lap in the form of one Steve Rogers. Except the most intriguing part about him centers around his red string—or lack thereof. Funny how things work out.

In one of the adjacent rooms, he can hear the clattering of someone cooking breakfast without magic. He slides off the couch, the wood flooring surprisingly warm against his bare feet despite the chilly morning, and finds Steve in the kitchen. There’s a kettle bubbling on a wood stove and two mugs steaming gently on the counter. “Oh, you’re awake,” he says when he catches sight of Bucky. “Would you like coffee?”

For a moment, he can only stand there taking the scene in. He hasn’t shared a living space with anyone else since he moved out of his parents’ house, and he’d forgotten how—nice it is to wake up to the sounds of someone else making breakfast. That strange sense of nostalgia from the day before returns, and he finds that he’s not even heartsick for his childhood home. _This_ place feels like home. Maybe more than any other house has. It’s a deeply unsettling feeling.

He forces himself to snap out of it and straightens up. “Yeah,” Bucky says. “Coffee would be great actually.”

Steve picks up one of the mugs with a light hum. “Well, too bad. We’ve only got tea,” he says and takes a sip. He smirks at Bucky over the rim of his cup.

He rolls his eyes. “Tea then.”

Steve obligingly slides the second mug over, and Bucky picks it up, letting it warm his hands for a moment. There’s a wire mesh ball filled with tea leaves bobbing gently in the hot water. He takes a sip. Something herbal but not any variety he’s ever tasted before. Probably locally grown. “It’s good,” he says, savoring the way his magic reacts to the caffeine. It’s a milder buzz than what he’s used to, smoother than the jagged spike of coffee.

For a while, they sit in silence, letting the tea slowly wake their magic up. Steve drains his cup first and dumps the dregs in the sink. He rifles through a drawer for a while before tossing something at Bucky. It hits his chest then flops to the floor. A pair of heavy work gloves.

“Trust me,” Steve says. “You’ll need these.”

And as it turns out, he does.

Bucky picks up a clump of hair when he arrives at the location Steve recommended to him, feeling its energy hum a counterpoint against his own magic. Some of it breaks in his gloved hand, the edges sharper than a razor blade. It’s a delicate fiber that’ll take a lot of time to gather. He is experienced with this sort of thing though, so he sets to work.

Bucky’s never actually handled a goddess’s hair, volcanic or otherwise. He’s never even seen a sample in person. Sure, he’s studied up on the most prominent prevailing theories, but those are incomplete at best. Fresh samples are hard to come by. Most volcanic deities have been sleeping for centuries, their fires cold, their calderas silent. This mountain holds one of the last active volcano gods in the world—hell, she’s one of the last waking primordial gods period.

So there’s plenty of working _hypotheses_ about the properties of a volcano goddess’s hair, but nothing genuinely conclusive. Though the consensus seems to be that it’ll probably be pretty fucking weird with her being a goddess of twin yet diametrically opposite aspects. A deity of both great destruction and great creation. The hair itself would be one of the few sources of volcanic magic that isn’t actively dangerous or completely immalleable. The stone singers have had more luck so far, but there’s something to be said about the pliability of cloth. If he could just figure out a way to weave the fibers into a workable fabric.

Theoretical knowledge aside, it becomes instantly clear that Bucky had the entirely wrong idea of what it even _looks_ like. For one, he nearly walked straight past the deposit, and that’s just embarrassing considering he has a map with Steve’s handwritten notes telling him exactly where to look. He’d initially mistaken it for a field of dried grass, their moisture drained by the heat of the sun. Bucky had been expecting it to be black like obsidian, but it’s actually tawny in color, gleaming in the morning light. Almost golden. It’s volcanic glass spun out into fine strands by wind.

Steve finds him as the sun starts to burn low on the horizon. Bucky’s kneeling carefully in between shards of black rock, pouring his magic into a particularly delicate mass of hair, gently coaxing it into untangling without breaking.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” he says, eyeing the rucksack full of hair.

Bucky gives up on extricating this particular clump and pushes to his feet, his back and joints protesting after hours spent hunched over in the hot sun. He tugs his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. Steve hands him a canteen, and Bucky immediately tips it over his mouth, savoring the cool slide of water down his throat.

“Thanks,” he says after he drinks his fill. “I really needed that.” When he glances up again, Steve is looking away, his ears pinked by the day’s heat.

“You’re surprisingly, ahh,” Steve starts to say then pauses to search for the right word, “ _sturdy_ for a citybred scholar. I’d expect you to be more—”

“Scrawny?” Bucky suggests drolly.

Steve cocks an eyebrow at him. “—Bookish,” he finishes.

Bucky chuckles. “Before my graduate studies, I spent a gap year chasing winged golden rams in Colchis. There was some wrestling of territorial dragons involved, so you can imagine I ended up bulking up quite a bit. And I’ve just kind of kept with it ever since. You’d be surprised how dangerous gathering unusual natural fibers can be.”

“I’m starting to get that idea, considering you’re voluntarily staying on an active volcano.”

“You’re the one who _lives_ here.”

“Well,” Steve’s expression suddenly turns complicated, partially sheepish, partially something else, “it’s not so bad. For one, the goddess here is much more level-headed than the majority of her fellows. She ended up building a shield volcano rather than one of the more short-tempered composites.”

Bucky nods thoughtfully, rubbing his thumb along the ridge of his red string wraps around his finger. There’s something in the way he said it. The stirrings of scientific curiosity tickles at the back of his mind. “Why did you decide to live here? Seems like there’s an interesting story behind that.”

He watches as Steve’s expression becomes even more complicated. “Well, you know,” Steve says. “My job’s here. It pays well, and it really isn’t a bad place to live. I like it well enough.”

Bucky studies him quietly for a moment longer. All in all, those are some pretty lackluster reasons for living on an active volcano. It sure as hell isn’t the whole truth. There’s more to this, he just can’t figure out what it is.

He muses vaguely if it has something to do with the fact that Steve doesn’t have a red string of fate. But well, then he’d have to sort out how that came about in the first place. Maybe it’s the work of the divine, but he’s never heard of any instances of gods messing around with people’s red strings of fate. Still, human magics could never make all traces of something so vitally a part of a person—so _fundamental_ —disappear. It could be a curse, but then again, he could’ve also given his red string up in a misguided bid for a pretty goddess’s affections. He’s not even sure if that’s possible, but it’s something.

“Is the goddess beautiful?” Bucky asks against his better judgment.

Steve arches an eyebrow at him. “Because why else would I stay alone on this godforsaken mountain?” Bucky flushes with embarrassment, and Steve continues on, “She’s old, even for a volcano. Some might call her decrepit. And there’s a good reason why outsiders call _that_ ,” he nods at Bucky’s rucksack full of blonde strands, “witch’s hair. There’s no aging gracefully in a being as ancient as her.” Steve fixes him with a disconcertingly intense gaze. “And she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Bucky shivers. Steve was right. He’s never dealt with the old gods before, and it’s skewing his entire perception of the situation. There’s a gravitas to this goddess that he’s never encountered before. The way he talks about her makes everything else seem almost petty by comparison.

Sure, he’s burnt money at the occasional way station to bribe the hermitic gods into warding off bad luck. He’s even left out a plate or two of sliced oranges for any stray deities to eat and pass on whichever scraps of genius they happen to have tucked in their pockets. And he’s met gods of old couch springs, of the sound of power lines buzzing in the night, of that particular color oxidizing copper takes on. Despite that, he can’t help but feel completely out of his depth. He’s a man of the hard magics, of humble borough gods and the full scope of human achievement. He’s never needed or wanted anything more.

And yet here is that something more.

“Have you met her?” he asks.

Steve smiles. “Yes.”

“What’s she like?”

“Graceful. Powerful. Steady,” Steve says. “She’s not necessarily quick to anger, but she does defend her own. She’s pretty different from other volcano gods you might’ve run into before.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bucky admits. “Most volcanos have been sleeping for centuries. Sometimes they wake up for a little while and cause a ruckus, but for the most part, their fires have gone cold.”

Steve genuinely looks surprised to hear that. “Oh, really?” he says, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead. It’s a weird reaction considering he’d kinda come off as a volcano buff to Bucky. That he didn’t know this basic fact seems like a bizarre gap in his knowledge.

“What ahh, other volcano gods have you met?” Bucky asks.

“Can’t remember their names,” Steve mutters evasively. “It was just one or two here and there.”

It’s obvious that he’s not going to share anything further, so Bucky lets the matter drop and picks up his rucksack. He pretends to be occupied with the balancing heft of on his back. All the while, his mind chews on the new incongruities in Steve’s story.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Bucky wakes to the sound of creaking rope, of canvas snapping in the wind, of a fog bell tolling its warning to passing ships. When he pokes into the kitchen, it’s empty save for a single mug of cooling tea on the countertop. Bucky drinks it, his ears filled with the groaning of ship timbers. Then he smooths out the wrinkles of one of his shirts from his small overnight bag, resolving to go into town sometime soon to buy more. The morning is peaceful as every morning here seems to be.

He even has time to take a shower. A real water shower with actual physical soap made with some sort of fragrant flower. It’s almost dizzying compared to the total absence of scent that comes from cleaning charms. Water showers have always been more a luxury than anything else, and who had the time for it anyway? Cleaning charms are just the cheaper, faster option. The entire pace of life is slower here on the mountain.

Bucky finally finds Steve when he steps out onto the porch and catches sight of him sitting on the front steps, his head tilted as if he’s focusing on something far away. It’s only then that Bucky realizes that he can hear the clamoring of phantom ships too.

“Sound travels differently here,” Steve says. 

There’s a man shouting orders in a language he doesn’t recognize. “This is a very strange mountain,” Bucky says.

Steve snorts. “No shit.”

“You’re kind of a weird guy too.”

“Really? I’d say I’m pretty normal.”

“You live alone under the constant threat of annihilation by volcano, and I’m starting to think your only friend is the very goddess that may or may not be the one to kill you at any moment.”

Steve smiles archly at him. “That’s quite a presumption of yours.”

“That you’re weird?”

“That I don’t have friends.”

Bucky plops down next to Steve and leans against a porch bannister. Instead of looking him in the eye, he sets to detangling his red string. It’s slow work because his skin is still a little damp from the shower earlier. Steve watches his progress without comment, and Bucky wonders how it must look. His fingers fiddling with invisible threads in the air. He works out what to say in his mind.

So far, he hasn’t really worked out all that much about Steve himself other than the fact that sometimes he randomly doesn’t know really basic facts. Like who the most recent president was. Or he makes a reference to a song that was popular like two decades ago. Bucky also hasn’t seen a single other person working or living on the mountain. Steve lives alone, and he went to work alone, and he made no mention of anyone Bucky might meet. He’s starting to get the sense that Steve might truly be the only living soul on the mountain. And that’s a very lonely existence.

“To be honest, I still don’t know why you stay,” he says.

Steve huffs. “That’s just because my house makes you uncomfortable.” 

“It’s the rosemary.”

“Liar.” 

“I don’t feel uncomfortable here.” Steve raises an eyebrow at him, and Bucky realizes that he’s sitting on the edge of his seat, his spine bowed, the muscles in his jaw tight. He forces his muscles to loosen, and immediately feels his body begin to sink down into the wood of the porch step. “I really don’t. It just makes me feel—nostalgic. I’m _too_ comfortable.”

Steve makes a sympathetic noise, but there’s an undercurrent of amusement in his voice. “You poor idiot, you have no idea, do you?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Enlighten me then.”

“It’s your _magic_. You’ve lived in the city your whole life, right? I bet you were an apartment brat.”

Bucky straightens up defensively. “I don’t see how that has to do with anything.”

“Well, this is probably the first time you’ve been in a place without all the background white noise of other people’s ambient magic. It clogs up your own magic, doesn’t give it room to stretch out like it should. Coming here would be like taking your first breath of clean air after a lifetime of smoking.”

Bucky snorts and picks at a particularly unruly knot. “That sounds like the hippie-dippie New Age bullshit a soothsayer would spout. Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that I need to exfoliate my aura.”

“Gods, why on earth would you subject yourself to talking to a _soothsayer_ of all people?” Steve twists his face up into a dramatic grimace as he says it, and Bucky can’t help but find it oddly endearing.

“Occupational requirement, unfortunately. I was applying for an out-of-state position with a soulmate counseling clinic.” He frowns at the memory. It hadn’t really been the best experience he’d had in life. “They’ve been cracking down on witches with magic tied up in the physical realm, especially in the medical fields. Because we draw our power from tangible objects, there’s been concerns that someone might have a go at siphoning magic from live people.”

This time Steve’s grimace is genuine. “That’s overreaching their jurisdiction. You should’ve filed a suit. It violates federal employee protections.”

“Yeah, maybe like thirty years ago,” Bucky says with a roll of his eyes. “It’s kinda different with conservative states these days. District precedents override the federal in this case. There was a big commotion about it when an alchemist took his boss to court and lost both the civil trial and the appeal.” 

“Sheesh, and you still wonder why I sequester myself to the top of a remote mountain.”

Bucky coughs out a laugh. “You’re right. Maybe I should take a page out of your book and become a hermit.” Another tangle loosens, and his red string is finally starting to look less like a clump of matted vines. He’d had to untangle it on occasion back when it was still intact, but not nearly as much as now.

“Well, you’ll have to find a different volcano,” Steve says. “This one’s already taken.”

“I think I’ll find a nice safe non-exploding mountain, thanks.”

“Are you kidding? That’s _prime_ hermitic real estate. All they’ve got left are exploding mountains, buddy.”

“Maybe I’ll just stay here with you then,” Bucky says.

And Steve’s face does—something interesting. It twitches into something resembling both embarrassment and amusement. His mouth keeps stretching up a little at the corners before dropping back down, and a light flush spreads down his neck. Which is interesting because Bucky had only really been joking just now. “A minute ago, you couldn’t even imagine why I would want to live here,” he says.

“What can I say, you made a compelling argument. I’ve decided to live out the rest of my life as a lone monk, drinking tea and eating flavorless wafers of bread.”

Steve huffs with mock offense. “My cooking isn’t _that_ bad.”

“You don’t have _coffee_. My life is empty without it.”

“Tea is better for you anyway. It helps you live longer.” Steve smiles, a teasing laugh edging into his voice as he says this.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to live forever just because of what I happen to drink with my toast in the morning.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“They have,” Bucky says as he picks apart the last knot in his red string and lets it spool out in loose curls onto his lap. It spills over to drape on the porch beside him. The end of it is crisp as if cut by a surgeon’s knife. 

 

* * *

 

Sometimes seeing the way his red string hangs like a lifeless thing is almost enough to drive him to pull out his bit of twine and look at Steve again. If only to confirm that he hadn’t just been imagining the lack of a red string.

They’re sitting in the visitor center, trying to catch the cool breeze through the open window. Bucky’s red string twitches in the corner of his vision when he shoves his hand into his pocket to fiddle with the twine. He tries very hard not to stare at where Steve’s red string should’ve been when he asks, “Do you ever wonder if you can change your fate?”

Steve arches an eyebrow at the question. “Probing my political beliefs, are you? If you must know, I’m not a deterministic hack. I do believe in the notion of free will.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Me too. I mean, I think so.”

“Not so sure anymore?”

“I just wonder if fate plays a larger role than I thought it did. I used to be very much in the camp that it was more of an overarching guideline than anything else.” Bucky shrugs and tries not to look at his red string. “I guess I’ve started to wonder if you get punished for defying it.”

“I don’t think so,” Steve says, his tone surprisingly certain. “I think it’s a lot less important than people like to credit it for. Some parts of it you shouldn’t really fuck with, but for the most part it leaves you alone.”

Bucky licks his lips. “So for example, would you be able to choose to not be with your soulmate?”

Steve looks at him sharply. His eyes narrow a little as he tries to parse through the meaning behind Bucky’s question. “Why do you ask?” he says slowly.

He shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant. “I’d always thought that people with soulmates still do have a choice. I mean, most folks end up choosing to spend the rest of their lives with their soulmate, but in the end, it’s still a choice.” Bucky fidgets a little and avoids Steve’s gaze. “But are we really just fooling ourselves? Is it just the illusion of choice, and if we don’t fall in line, we’ll get hit with karmic backlash?”

Steve falls silent for a while as he mulls over an answer. It hasn’t escaped Bucky’s notice just how little he talks about himself and how evasive he seems to be when directly asked. This is the first time that Bucky’s ever really asked anything so personal—so uncomfortable. But Steve of all people would have a perspective that might be able to help him.

“I never much cared for the idea of soulmates to be honest,” Steve finally says. It’s not a surprising answer all things considered. “I mean, I do want someone to give a shit about me, but I never liked the idea of a person being strong-armed by fate into loving me. It’s kinda fucked up if you think too hard about it.” He twists his mouth as he thinks a little more and then continues, “But ultimately, I don’t think that fate gets revenge on you for say, rejecting your soulmate. Fate’s ultimately a neutral force. Most of the time it doesn’t really give a shit what you do. Yeah, there are some things you can do that’ll cause fate to fuck you up. But I think any sort of punishment you run into has a lot more to do with what society dishes out to you. People tend to be much less…kind towards those they consider aberrations.”

He doesn’t know if that makes him feel better or worse. “I see,” Bucky says. 

And this time, Steve does catch Bucky when he glances at his empty left hand. His expression hardens a little as he pins Bucky down with a stern gaze. 

“I’d thought you were being a little overly nosy,” he says dryly. Bucky flushes. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to a thread witch, you know. I’d forgotten that your type can be more perceptive than others.” He flicks a glance meaningfully at Bucky’s hand, still tucked in his pocket.

Bucky’s embarrassed blush darkens, and he pulls his hand out, holding it up. The twine is tangled around his fingers. Steve reaches forward and snags the cuff of Bucky’s shirt, then tugs it toward himself. He unwinds the twine from Bucky’s hand, the warmth of Steve’s fingers are almost a physical touch against his skin. The back of his neck prickles at the not-quite contact.

“So when did you find out?” Steve asks.

Bucky ducks his head. “The first day,” he mumbles, feeling like a chastised student.

“I should’ve known a thread witch would’ve been curious enough to check.” Steve shakes his head with a sigh.

“It wasn’t that,” Bucky says. “I just wanted to know why your house felt so weird.”

Steve studies him for a long moment before sagging a little. “Well,” he says. “I guess I can’t blame you for that. It must’ve freaked the hell out of a city kid like you.” He grins a little, and the tension finally breaks.

“Rude,” Bucky says, but he can’t quite keep the relief out of his voice.

Steve turns back to the piece of twine in his hand. “I never fully understood how this branch of magic worked,” he muses. He ties the ends together and loops the string around his fingers before slowly working his way through a basic string figure pattern.

“Cup and saucer,” Bucky says when he recognizes it.

“Tell me how it works,” Steve murmurs. “I’m curious.”

“I mean, it’s pretty simple. It’s just a piece of string, but it’s—well, it’s also a lot more than that, you know?”

“That clarified exactly nothing.” 

“It’s _thread_.” Steve continues to stare at him blankly, and Bucky huffs with exasperation. “Mothers sew their children’s swaddling clothes. You knit socks and scarves and hats for your loved ones to wear during the cold months. For centuries, young girls spent years of their lives stitching their dowries. Our lives are bound together by countless threads of life and destiny, including,” he stutters a little but pushes on, “red strings of fate. What do you think happens to an object after so much weight, so much history, so much _devotion_ is poured into the creation and use of it?”

“It starts to gain its own power.”

“It’s simple but very potent magic. I mean, _children_ can tap into it. But it’s strong enough to bind families together, make their bloodlines strong, ward off misfortune.”

“And tie lovers together,” Steve says with just a hint of bitterness. “Most of the time.”

That brings Bucky pause. “It’s not—” he very carefully doesn’t look down at his hands. “Like you said, it’s not immutable. You don’t need a red string to fall in love.”

“Sure, you can fall in love. Doesn’t mean you actually _care_. It’s the way we’ve been trained to think. You’re either with your soulmate or you’re waiting to meet them. Sometimes, you’re always just waiting.”

“Those aren’t the only two options.”

Steve tugs agitatedly at the twine, the pattern he’s trying to form a snarled mess. “People don’t tend to meet their soulmates and decide to date someone else. It’s too deeply ingrained in our culture for it to really be something people do.”

"They can choose not to be together at all," Bucky says quietly. "They can choose to be alone. If it’s not hurting anyone, they should be able to choose.“

“Sure they can, but not without repercussions. People place too much importance on it for you to just ignore it and hope it goes away. People are always going to be pushing you to fulfill your destiny, even if it that means you fulfill it in the most convoluted, fucked up way imaginable.”

“That’s why I asked earlier if you thought someone could change their fate itself,” Bucky says. “Not just going against it. Actually changing the course of it.”

Steve blinks. “Well, that,” he says. “That you definitely can’t do. There’s a lot you can choose to do, but you can’t change the fundamental truth. The person who’s your soulmate will always be that for you. You can decide not to spend your life with your soulmate, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not soulmates. That’s something you can’t change. You’re still bound together. This is the domain of the gods we’re talking about. Fucking old powerful gods who are way more easily offended than the garden variety ones you’re used to dealing with. You can’t just change your fate.” 

Steve yanks a knot loose, and it’s only then that Bucky realizes what pattern he’s making. The winking eye. One of the simpler patterns for Sight.

“Don’t—” Bucky starts to say, but Steve’s already lifting the pattern up to his eye, tugging the opening wide enough for him to see through.  

Steve inhales sharply when he sees Bucky’s red string, his face going deathly pale. “You absolute _idiot_ ,” he breathes. “You actually changed it.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky scrubs a hand through his hair and tries to flick a knot out of his red string. He just feels so _exhausted._ He wants nothing more than to go to sleep and hope everything will have fixed itself by morning. His red string is the most tangled it’s ever been. It almost seems to writhe like a living thing as he moves his hand to unsnarl it. 

Steve sits next to him in stony silence. It’s so quiet, he can feel his heartbeat throbbing in his ears as he wrestles with each stubborn knot. He yanks harder at his red string, but it’s a useless effort. The more he tries to fix it, the worse it gets. 

Bucky hisses out a frustrated sigh and collapses onto his back. His face feels hot and tight, like his skin is too small. His magic churns in his stomach, and for a moment, he feels so nauseous, he can only focus on keeping his breathing even and slow.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says to the ceiling.

Then Bucky forces himself to sit up again and have another go at untangling his red string. But it’s slow going. Every time, he feels like he’s making progress, he pulls at the string wrong or he threads the end through the wrong loop, and he’s back to where he started. The sun starts to sink low in the sky, and still Steve refuses to talk to him. There’s anger in the tense set of his jaw and his brow draws low, but it’s somehow, restrained. Bucky resolves to ignore him sets back on the fruitless task of trying to make his red string slightly less fucked up.

Steve watches him struggle for a moment longer before finally speaking, “You do that quite a lot.”

“Shockingly,” Bucky says as he pulls uselessly at his red string, “an untethered string tangles more often.”

“Not _that_ often,” Steve says. 

And Bucky doesn’t even know how to begin to unpack that. Because he knows that his red string tangles often. More often than any he’s ever encountered before, and he’s seen quite a few thanks to the post-severance trauma support groups his therapist forced him to attend. He doesn’t know why, and it sure as hell isn’t something he wants to deal with now.

Steve continues on. “You messed with something fundamental to who you are as a person. That messes with your very humanity. And not just any fate thread, you had to screw with your fucking _red string of fate_. Do you have _any_ idea what you did to yourself when you cut ties with your soulmate? You _unmade_ yourself into half a person. You may as well’ve sliced your soul in two.”

Bucky stops to glare up at him. “It may surprise you that as an academic, I _had_ actually done my research before going through with this. Red string severance is a more common phenomenon than you think,” he says. “People die. People are left to live the rest of their lives alone. Shit happens.” 

“Not like that,” Steve says. “The break is too clean—too precise. It’s almost surgical. There’s losing your soulmate through natural means, and then there’s _deliberately destroying_ a bond woven by the gods. I know what natural red string severance looks like, and it isn’t _that_. Death causes fraying, a little unraveling sometimes. Yours looks like you went at it with a goddamn knife.”

Bucky self-consciously tucks his left hand against his chest. Not that it makes a difference. Steve can’t see it without a Sight spell, and even if he could right now, the damage has already been done. He’s already seen Bucky’s red string. He already knows very well what it looks like. The blunt end of it, the perfect even line that the tip forms. It’s unnatural in its precision. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly, staring down at his hand. “You’re right. It’s impossible for natural causes to cut off a soulmate so perfectly. Something like this would have to be through some sort of outside interference. It doesn’t just happen by chance. It has to be deliberate. Premeditated.” He lifts his eyes to meet Steve’s gaze. “So what happened to your red string, Steve?”

For a moment, Steve looks completely caught off balance. His expression drops into something that Bucky has never seen before—exposed and a little surprised, perhaps ashamed. And absolutely, utterly terrified. Then Steve’s expression twists. The set of his shoulders go stiff and defensive, and suddenly, his eyes are blazing. He leans over and hisses, “You have no idea what you’ve condemned yourself to, and you just sit here like it’s no big deal. You completely fucked yourself over. Condemned yourself to a life of misery.”

Bucky recoils away from him. Steve watches him with this expression all twisted up on his face, full of anger and helplessness and genuine distress. “You don’t even _know_.” Steve shudders, his arms crossing almost defensively across his chest. “Your red string is the _anchor_ keeping your soul stabilized, and you just cut yourself loose from one of the few things keeping you sane. There’s never a good reason to cut your own goddamn red string.”

“It’s not like I had a _choice,_ ” Bucky snaps back. He can’t sit here and listen to Steve tell him what he already knows. That cutting his own red string was the worst decision he’s ever made in his life. That it _ruined_ him. 

“You said it yourself, there’s _always_ a choice.”

“Not any I could ever choose.” The worst part of it all is that even if he got the chance to go back and change his decision, he wouldn’t. He’d do it again if given the chance because the alternative was something he could never allow.

Steve tilts his head and crosses his arms, a terrifying glint in his eyes. “They rejected you, didn’t they,” he says, his voice low. “Did you cut your red string out of spite? If you’re just some lonely asshole who can’t land a date even after meeting his _soulmate_ , if you cut your red string to destroy them because you couldn’t have them—” Steve trails off, his voice soft, then he straightens up with all the righteous fury of an avenging angel. “You better not have. You’re a good man, but that I could never forgive.”

Bucky reels back from the sheer restrained fury in the statement. “What? Of course not, I _couldn’t_ —I would _never_ do that to her.” He forces his clenched fists to relax. To think that Steve would even believe for a moment that Bucky would ever do that to another living being out of revenge. “I love her, you asshole,” he snarls.

“Then this is the worst thing you could’ve possibly done to her,” Steve snaps back.

The blood drains from Bucky’s face. “What?”

“It’s a two-way connection, asshole. Your soulmate’s stuck with the consequences just as much as you are. It’s like rotting alive. You _destroyed_ her.”

“No,” Bucky says, his voice shaking. “That can’t be—that didn’t come up at all when I was researching. There are side effects to severance, but it’s not life-ruining.”

“It didn’t come up because no one else is stupid enough to do this shit on purpose,” Steve snarls. “You don’t fuck around with things as big as this without consequences.”

Bucky’s head spins. He hadn’t even thought of what might happen to Natasha. She doesn’t know _any_ of this. Gods, she has no idea. “I didn’t know,” he says faintly.

“Do you think the gods care? Do you think they’ll give you a pass because you didn’t stop to think that maybe it’s a bad idea to _slice_ through your own fate threads?”

Bucky sways on his feet. “Is there anything I can do to stop this?”

“You can hope they’ll be merciful,” Steve says, his voice cracking a little. For the first time, Bucky sees how sad and scared he really is.“It’s—it’s awful what they do. And they’re so _patient_ with it. You might not really feel it now, probably not until years from now. But it just slowly creeps up on you, you don’t even notice it’s happening until you’re in so much agony you can’t even remember what it’s like to be sane.” A shudder runs through his whole body. “No one should ever have to go through that, least of all the person you love.”

“I, no, I gotta—” Bucky says, and realizes that at this point, he really doesn’t care if he’s being rude. “I’m leaving.” Then he turns on his heel and runs out the door.

 

* * *

 

Bucky drives like a maniac to the town at the base of the mountain. There’s a hot coil of fear and confusion in his stomach, and he feels a lot like laughing and crying right now. The engine judders underneath him in response to his roiling magic, and it’s all Bucky can do to keep himself reined in enough to stop himself from accidentally blowing himself off the side of the mountain. 

The only thing circling through his mind is an endless litany of, _Natasha doesn’t_ _know_. _She doesn’t know._

And gods, they’re nothing to each other now, but she still is—was—his soulmate. His last tie to her is snarled up around his left hand, but all the care and devotion he’d carried inside him as he waited to meet her—that doesn’t just disappear. He doesn’t think he’ll ever lose that sense of loyalty to her. He’d spent too many years, preparing for the moment she would enter his life. Always watching where his red string led. Always waiting. There’s a part of him that’s still waiting for her, even though he knows better.

Bucky parks in a side street and half-runs to the mom and pop grocer he vaguely remembers driving past on his way to the mountain. The old man behind the counter raises an eyebrow at Bucky when he runs in and asks if they have a phone, but thankfully, they do still have one. It’s a strange request, he knows. Maybe forty years ago people used landlines, but that was before someone figured out a charm to throw your voice across the country. 

But the only thing he has left of Natasha is a ten-digit number with a North Dakota area code, a place she’d never set foot into in her entire life. Magic is traceable, more so than an archaic mode of communication that only hobbyists indulge in. The old telephone lines are only still maintained because they’ve been found to help direct and focus free-floating spells.

Bucky stands at the back of the store with the phone receiver tucked against his ear and listens to the line ring. Natasha picks up just before it goes to voice mail. It’s silent on the other end.

“I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emergency,” Bucky says.

“I’m listening,” Natasha says, carefully neutral, her intonations scrubbed clean of anything that might indicate a history. No regional accent, enunciated just enough to be generic. When he’d known her, she’d had the slight burr of a Russian accent.

“What you asked me to do for you—there are consequences. I didn’t know before, but now I do.”

There’s a brief pause, one that Bucky has learned to read into in the short time that they’ve known each other. She’s integrating the new information, weighing the odds. “Consequences?” Natasha asks.

“Misfortune. Loss of equilibrium.” He takes a breath. “And eventually, insanity.”

“How soon?”

“I don’t know. It’ll probably be years down the line.”

And then, for the first time in the whole conversation, Natasha’s voice breaks from its careful indifference. She exhales—a faint chuckle. “I appreciate the warning, but you should take care of yourself first, James,” she says, warmth tinging her voice. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be long dead by then.”

“Nat—” Bucky starts to say, but the connection drops. He listens to the tone for a moment but doesn’t bother trying to redial the number. She would’ve destroyed the phone the moment she hung up. His last means of contacting her gone now. He sighs.

The old man stares at him from behind the counter, long enough for Bucky to cave and buy a tin of coffee beans. “Thanks for letting me borrow your phone,” he mumbles as the man rings him up. He’s way overcharged for one measly can of coffee beans, but at this point, he’s past caring.

He walks outside with the tin cradled in the crook of his elbow, before plopping down on the corner curb. Bucky’s heart rate is finally starting to settle down now that he managed to warn Natasha. Whatever happens will happen, but at least, she’ll know what it is when it comes. Well, if she’s still alive, as she so helpfully reminded Bucky. As far as unpleasant truths go, it’s the last one he wants to be thinking of right now.

And gods, he wants nothing more than to go home now. He wants to be in his tiny office with the placard on his door spelling his name wrong. Where the only thing he had to argue about with people was whether the magic of the spindle or the skill of the spinner mattered more in the creation of thread. He doesn’t want to remember that he’s staring down the barrel of a lifetime spent slowly drifting into madness just because he loved someone too much to deny her the one thing she’d ever asked of him.

But he knows that going back home isn’t what he should be doing now. There’s an even bigger mess waiting for him there than Steve suddenly deciding to drop a bunch of terrible truths on him. He sighs. His head is buzzing with the stress and anxiety of the day, and he can’t seem to _think_. He just wants everything to quiet long enough for him to figure this all out. 

There’s a shout from a few blocks away, and he realizes that he can see the harbor from here. The fishermen have finally come in with the day’s catch, and a couple of kids still in their school uniforms flit between the ice coolers. One man beckons them over, and skins and cuts the meat off one of his fish before sprinkling salt and shredded seaweed on it. He shares it with the children, and they whoop with happiness as they eat.

A few other kids wander up to Bucky, looking at him curiously. He smiles weakly at them and pulls out his twine to form some shapes for them. He shows them the stars in the sky, the rabbits and frogs and wolves. His magic sparks off of him, creating little points of light and figures of animals. The kids laugh, and eventually, Bucky starts to laugh with them. 

He offers his string to one of the kids, and she makes a broomstick and a pair of scissors for him. Another kid creates a moth. He gets a sea snake and a sunrise and a lizard next. Three sunfish swimming in tandem. One of the more talented kids shows him a dancing pig without a head. 

“Dinner,” he says to Bucky, and the crowd giggles.

The kids eventually become bored and start to wander home. There’s one solemn-faced boy who lingers and watches as Bucky stands to tuck the twine back in his pocket.

“Where are you staying?” the boy asks. “We have a guest room.”

Bucky scrubs a hand through his hair and looks to the dark shape of the mountain looming over them. At least, his head’s quieter now. His magic’s settled back down. “I guess I should head back,” he says. 

The boy’s eyes widen when he follows his gaze. “To the mountain? _Now?_ ”

Bucky pauses. “What’s wrong with now?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I’ve been staying up there for a while now. I think I’d know if it’s dangerous.”

“It is!” The boy says insistently. “There’s Tutu and Ha Ole, and the marching ghosts.”

Bucky smiles, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Don’t worry.”

The boy stares at him with dismay for a moment longer before tugging at Bucky’s shirt. His expression is very serious when he says, “If a strange woman in a white dress asks you for a ride, be polite and take her wherever she wants to go. If you hear drumming, lie face down on the ground. The marching ghosts will kill you if you look them in the eye.” 

The way the boy says it has a well-worn, practiced quality to it. Like it’s something that’s been recited to him over and over. Ghost stories to keep children in bed.

That gives Bucky pause. Regional magical beings are tricky to handle. Ornery, unpredictable, entrenched in their ways. None of them bother with adhering to any sort of national standard like the more cosmopolitan deities, and it’s not exactly high up on the government’s priority list to check that every backwater harvest god is adhering to the federal regulations. A grumpy spirit killing the occasional tourist over arbitrary, vaguely defined insults doesn’t even make the local news anymore. 

And as a visitor in an area of unfamiliar rules and magics, Bucky would be an absolute idiot to disregard the warnings local parents drill into their children’s heads to keep them scared but safe.

“Thank you,” Bucky says. “I’ll be careful.”

It’s still not quite dark by the time he makes it back to his car to start the drive up the mountain, and he’s deeply grateful for that small blessing. He passes the open-air market on his way back out of town. The stalls have long since closed for the day, blankets covering the table, empty crates with prices scrawled in Sharpie on them. 

He sees a man standing amidst the mess, a gnarled burn scar twisting down his face. It’s impossible to tell what his expression is, but he looms angry and purposeful in the near-darkness. Bucky shivers, glad that he isn’t lingering in town any longer.

 

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t see any monsters or ghosts on the ride back up the mountain. For that matter, he doesn’t even know what a Tutu or a Ha Ole looks like. It’s just the waxing moon above him, fat and yellow in the sky. The drive back up is long. So much longer than the first time he came up or when he was racing down to find a phone to reach Natasha. And left alone with nothing to distract himself, Bucky thinks of Steve.

Because the way he talked, it was so raw and personal that Bucky’s getting the horrible suspicion that Steve’s seen exactly what happens to a person when they cut their own red string. The way he’d been yelling, it was almost as if he wasn’t really talking to Bucky. It was like he was talking to someone else entirely. That sheer emotion has to come from a deep well of hurt. Something happened to Steve in the past, and Bucky had inadvertently dragged all that ugliness back up to the surface.

Bucky turns past the small cluster of standing trees surrounding Steve’s house, and he catches sight of two figures sitting on the porch. One of them is obviously Steve. The other is a woman. Their heads tilt together as if sharing a secret. She’s dressed in a white formless dress, like a shift. Her hair is the same pale as the strands Bucky’s been collecting from the crevices of volcanic rocks. Her skin isn’t quite the deep color of basalt, more that particular shade of rust-rich earth the people at the base till their crops in. From this distance, he can’t see her face, but the hairs on his arms stand on end just at the sight of her.

The air around the woman starts to distort the closer Bucky comes. Like heat haze rippling above a sidewalk on a summer day. Steve is alone by the time Bucky reaches the first step at the base of the porch. Though his expression initially seems to be blank when he looks up at Bucky, there are still visible lines of tension in his forehead. He looks as exhausted as Bucky feels.

“I’m surprised you came back,” he says wearily.

“Honestly,” Bucky says, “I’m surprised too. You said some pretty awful things, you know.”

Steve looks like he’s trying to muster up a scowl but he’s too drained to do much more than frown vaguely. “There isn’t ever a good reason to cut anyone’s red string, let alone your own.”

“Sometimes there are.”

“Do you really hate her that much?” 

Bucky sighs. “You know I don’t hate her. Hell, I don’t think you believe half the accusations coming out of your own mouth.”

That takes Steve aback. He blinks for a long moment, at a loss for words. “I wasn’t lying,” he finally says.

Bucky plops down on the porch step, leaning heavily against the bannister. “Yeah,” he says and blows out a breath, “I didn’t think you were. But you weren’t really being honest either.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” Steve says.

“Probably.” Bucky snorts. He thinks for a moment before deciding to push a little harder. “Why’d you get so pissed off anyway? There was no way that I could’ve known what would’ve happened, and yet you acted like I was out to destroy my soulmate.” 

It catches Steve off-guard a little, a flash of guilt flitting across his face. He tucks his hands in his pockets. “Don’t ask me that,” he says. There’s a hint of challenge in his voice as if he’s expecting Bucky to refuse.

But Bucky figures he’s pushed enough for today. Now that he’s starting to get a sense of what Steve went through, he at least owes it to him not to pick at old wounds. “Alright,” he says. “I won’t ask.”

“You sure?” Steve says suspiciously. “I know what folks like you can be like. You just keep digging until you find something.”

“I kinda don’t want a repeat of the whole angry spiel,” Bucky replies dryly.

Steve at least has the grace to look chagrined. “I still stand by what I said,” he says. “There isn’t ever a good reason to cut your own red string.”

“And you’re probably right,” Bucky admits, picking idly at the red string still tangled around his hand, “but you’re weirdly narrow minded, you know. You keep thinking I did it for my own sake.”

It takes a couple more moments for it to click in Steve’s head. Bucky can tell when it does because a wave of guilt immediately washes over his expression. “You poor bastard, your _soulmate_ was the one who wanted out?”

Bucky rolls his weight back and forth on his heels. He smiles ruefully, the hurt of it strangely dulled. “Pretty much,” he says. “Maybe it’s cliche to say, but she was—singular. Utterly unique. She’s the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met in my life. I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her.”

It’s hard to look at the pity in Steve’s expression, it’s so acute.  “But she didn’t love you.”

Bucky shrugs, feeling weirdly detached from the whole sorry affair. Like he’s not even talking about himself. Maybe it’s because of the conversation with Natasha earlier. She has a habit of compartmentalizing emotion that’s weirdly infectious. 

“Who knows? She couldn’t afford to let herself love me. She led a dangerous life. A solitary one by necessity. We’d only met by chance, and honestly, it would’ve been better for both of us if we never crossed paths.” He tugs the twine out of his pocket and contemplates it. “You know how easy it is to See other people’s red strings. Just a spell and a bit of twine. And then it’s a simple matter to follow that connection to the person on the other side. Soulmates are—exploitable. They’re liabilities too dangerous to be left as they are.”

“Your soulmate,” Steve’s expression had grown steadily more distressed as Bucky talked, “was going to _kill_ you?”

“It’s standard procedure in her line of work. But well,” Bucky sends Steve a small smile, “she was more soft-hearted than her peers. She knew I was a thread witch who studied obscure magical fibers, and what’s more arcane than red strings of fate?”

He remembers the moment he cut the red string vividly. How the loss of it had seared through him, a maw opening up inside him that would never be filled. His magic had writhed at the loss, curling frantically around the remains of the red string to try to hold it together. He’d collapsed, weeping, almost immediately. 

When he’d looked up to Natasha. She’d been standing, stiff and pale-faced, the muscles in her jaw jumping. The red string was stark against her white knuckles as she gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling. He’d cut as close to her skin as he dared, and so she only had a small stub of a red string now. Too short to tangle or get in the way.

Natasha had stayed with him for another five days after that until he was able to stand up without feeling like he wanted to vomit. It hadn’t been pain they’d experienced per se, but it’d hurt all the same. When he’d finally recovered, she pressed a hand against his neck—a gesture of quiet, fervent gratitude. The warmth of her skin against his. It’d been the first time she’d ever touched him. And then she was gone.

Bucky leans back, letting his head thunk against the bannister. He avoids looking at the expression on Steve’s face. “You know,” he says with the barest hint of irony,“of all the people she could’ve been bound to, she ended up with the one person who could sever the connection. Funny how Fate works.”

 

* * *

 

They go back inside the house, Steve much more quiet and pensive than usual. Bucky straightens out the blanket on the couch and sits. There’s an ache in his chest just above where his magic sits. It’s always there nowadays—always will be—but it’s so much harder to ignore tonight. Steve slumps down next to Bucky, lying sprawled out on his back. He scrubs a hand over his face with a groan. “Gods, I was such an asshole.” 

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, you kinda were.”

Steve straightens up and looks at Bucky for a moment, guilt plain on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt,” Bucky says. “I mean, you of all people would understand the most about what this—” He waves his left hand at Steve, feeling the tangled mass of his red string thump dully against his wrist. It’s a pointless gesture, considering Steve can’t even see it. “—what this must feel like. This _absence_.”

“I do,” Steve says quietly. “It’s not something anyone should ever have to experience.”

There’s a rawness to his voice, confirming a horrible suspicion Bucky had been wondering about. Until now he hadn’t truly known if Steve had been born without a red string or if he’d somehow lost it over the course of his life. At first, Bucky had just assumed that he’d never had one. Because it’d been unthinkable that anyone could’ve had that connection once and then lose it. Not a single trace left. Not even a sliver of thread remaining from which he could draw some small comfort. It was a prospect so horrible that Bucky hadn’t seriously considered it as a possibility.

Bucky jolts from his thoughts at the sound of Steve’s voice. “You promised not to pry.” There’s a tightness in his mouth that indicates he’d surmised the direction of Bucky’s thoughts from his silence.

“I didn’t say anything,” Bucky replies.

“You were forming conjectures.”

“I can’t stop myself from wondering.”

Steve sighs resignedly. “Believe me, I know,” he says. “You’re a scholar, and I’m the best kind of puzzle.”

“I won’t ask questions. Your secrets are your own.” A bit of hurt enters his voice despite himself. “Whatever happened must’ve been pretty bad for you to react like that.”

Steve flinches back a little. “I was only—”

“I get it,” Bucky says. “These things are hard to deal with. It’s obviously still a pretty raw subject for you.” He sighs and falls back until he’s sinking into the couch cushions. “It’s still a sensitive topic to me too. I haven’t really regained my footing ever since I severed the connection.”

“And I kicked you in the ribs while you were already down,” Steve says, following the line of Bucky’s thought to its conclusion.

Bucky opens his mouth to reply but quiets when Steve tips forward until he’s in Bucky’s space, half-sitting, half-kneeling. Steve stays there for a strained half-moment, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he thinks. Like he’s making a decision. 

Another moment passes, but before Bucky can ask what Steve’s doing, his magic suddenly shivers. The quality of the air changes, and Steve’s eyes flick up to meet Bucky’s. There’s a strange brightness to them. The way some people’s eyes look when they accidentally draw another person’s magic into themselves. It leaves them so saturated with magic, their bodies collapse under the strain. No single person could ever be able to contain that much magic.

“What’re you—” Bucky begins to say, but then Steve reaches over to touch his left wrist.

For an instant, he feels the magic flowing through Steve, like his entire being is a live wire, a conduit for this rushing of power. He feels it course through his veins like it’s his own magic. Then the moment passes, and it’s just Steve touching the thin skin at the underside of his wrist. Bucky blinks dazedly. It’d been almost short enough for him to believe he might’ve imagined it. But not quite.

And then Steve _touches_ his red string.

Bucky’s eyes widen, and it’s all he can do to stare in utter disbelief as Steve pinches the end of his red string between forefinger and thumb to lift it up. Which should be _impossible_.

The only people in the world who can touch a red string are the twin souls it binds together. A person’s red string is like any other tangible physical object to them. You can feel it rub against your skin, you can grab ahold of it, reach down and untangle it from where it’d looped around your legs. 

But it’s an entirely different story for everyone else around you. Red strings pass through strangers like they’re nothing but air. They run through walls and buildings and magical barriers. Because in a lot of ways, a red string doesn’t even _exist_ to anyone but two people and two people alone.

“What the fuck.”

Steve ducks his head down, avoiding Bucky’s incredulous stare as he rolls the red string between his fingers and begins the slow process of untangling it. “I’m holding you to that promise not to pry,” he says.

Bucky studies the Steve’s fingers at work, how quickly he tugs apart the knots into something more manageable. He hadn’t really noticed before how slim they are or the precision of his movements. There’s a deliberateness to his actions that always made him seem so—settled in his own skin. He’s comfortable with himself regardless of whether he’s firing off a snarky comment at Bucky or doing something like _this_. Something wholly impossible.

“I won’t ask,” he says. “But if you don’t want me to be curious, you really shouldn’t be showing this—whatever the fuck this is—to me so casually.”

“You’ll be curious regardless.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “There’s vague nosiness about an unlikely but still plausible phenomenon, and then there’s reaching into the metaphysical plane and touching an artifact of the Fates with _your bare hands_.”

Steve scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s not actually—”

“I don’t know if you realize this, but a researcher who’s devoted his life to studying weird thread magic, and who recently had a _strong_ incentive to learn just about everything there is to know about red strings so that his soulmate won’t fucking _kill_ him—” Bucky pauses to drag in a breath, “—that guy probably knows what he’s talking about when he says that what you’re doing right here should be impossible.”

“You were the one who actually cut the damn red string.”

“My own! I very well couldn’t have snipped _someone_ _else’s_ red string in two.”

Steve groans. “Look, I was an ass to you, okay? I accused you of some pretty awful shit that I know you would never even dream of doing. So just—” he fidgets with the length of string still in his hand, “—just let me do this one thing for you. I’m not trying to fucking bait you. I’m just trying to be a decent person doing a nice thing for someone else.”

“Nice?” Bucky sputters out incredulously. “You broke at least half a dozen known laws of reality just to be _nice?_ ”

“I’m trying to apologize, you asshole,” Steve snaps. “Gods, you don’t have to overthink every fuc—”

Bucky reaches out and grabs Steve’s wrist, stopping him mid rant. He presses his thumb firmly into the join between Steve’s hand and wrist where his pulse flutters. “Thank you,” he says as sincerely as he can. 

“Oh, well,” Steve flushes down to the base of his neck, “You’re welcome.”

Bucky smiles, still a little flabbergasted at the awkward sincerity of the gesture. Because in its own roundabout way, it was a very earnest expression of remorse. Steve had likely grown used to guarding his secrets, and the prospect of someone potentially bringing them to light must be terrifying. He’d lashed out at Bucky to protect his secrets, eminently understandable but still a deliberately malicious attack on Bucky’s character. 

So by way of apology, Steve is choosing to share this with Bucky, this insight into the strange and fantastical truth. Showing Bucky that there is so much more to this story than he’d possibly imagined. That there is more to learn and see in this world than the small-minded hypotheses dreamt up within the limited confines of his mind. And even if he may never learn the truth behind it within his lifetime, it’s enough to know that it’s there. It’s enough to know that someday someone else may catch a glimpse of this and uncover the truth for themselves.

It’s a gift so precious, he won’t ever be able to adequately express his gratitude. And Steve probably doesn’t even realize half of what this means to Bucky. 

“Ah,” Steve says, pulling Bucky from his thoughts. He’s still blushing, and he’s looking everywhere but at Bucky. If anything, it seems to be spreading a little until the tips of his ears are tinged pink. “You’re uhh still—”

And that’s when Bucky remembers he’s still holding onto Steve’s wrist. “Oh,” he releases Steve. “Sorry.” 

Steve finishes the rest of the process of untangling Bucky’s red string in silence. Bucky thanks him quietly, distracted by how the warmth of Steve’s skin lingers on his hand. Even after they turn in for the night, Bucky finds himself rubbing the pads of his fingers together. 

And it’s in this moment that Bucky realizes how right Steve had been earlier. He really is exactly the kind of puzzle to keep a man like Bucky continuously, hopelessly enthralled. An impossible conundrum.

 

* * *

 

Things settle a little after that day. 

There’s an easing in their interactions. Steve isn’t quite so sharp-edged anymore. There are still moments where some of the old anxiety slips through, and he bites out something that’s just this side of too harsh, too defensive. But for the most part, it seems he’s started to trust Bucky to let his secrets remain his own.

It helps that Bucky had been candid with Steve about his own secrets.

In all honesty, he really doesn’t really know why he told Steve. No one at home knows what happened, and that’s exactly the way he wants it. But somehow, it’d felt right to tell Steve, a stranger. Maybe it was because he’d hoped Steve would understand in a way that none of his friends with their perfectly intact red strings could. Maybe he just didn’t want Steve to keep believing whatever fucked up reason he came up with. But now the only people in the world who know are him, Natasha, and now Steve. 

It’s strangely comforting that someone else knows. That his and Natasha’s strange and tragic drama exists beyond just the two of them. It’s like part of the burden has been lifted, as if Steve is now bearing some of the weight.

Bucky goes back to researching the goddess’s hair. It’s a finicky and delicate material at the best of times. At one point, the process of coaxing it into something resembling workable thread had been soothing—almost meditative. Bucky’s never had problems with thorny, time-consuming work. He wouldn’t be in this field if he didn’t like a challenge.

But now, he finds that he can’t keep his focus on it at all. Now there’s a larger, more tantalizing puzzle to solve in front of him, and he just can’t muster up the same interest anymore in the goddess’s hair. 

There’s the old obsession, left over from the feverish hours spent unearthing every scrap of esoteric lore on red strings. In the aftermath of losing his connection to Natasha, he couldn’t bear to even think of all the research he’d done. But now, with a little bit of time and distance (though not nearly as much as he’d like), he finds that he can think back on that frantic surreal period without flinching.

And for all the stress and mounting sense of dread, those are memories that he’ll hold dear for the rest of his life. Because it had been the only time that he got the opportunity to get to know Natasha. To spend his days around her, talking through theories and solutions with her, slowly learning to see through her many-layered masks. He’d grown to appreciate her calm and her grounded logic, the fleeting moments of dry humor. He’d loved her even as he helped her cut all ties with him.

And the work they were doing had been endlessly fascinating. It was a field that not many researchers had delved into. Not for lack of curiosity, however. Of course people were interested in the most tangible of the fate threads, but collecting any sort of meaningful data on it was too much of a headache to be feasibly pursued. 

Red strings are deeply personal, and no scientist has ever managed to distance themself enough from the subject matter to produce any sort of unbiased or credible results. And it’s virtually impossible to collect data in a useful sample size for something that could only be seen or touched by two people. There’ve been some behavioral studies on post-severance patients with interesting results, but nothing meaningful on the true nature of red strings. 

It’s entirely uncharted territory, one of the few left within the realm of known magics, and Bucky’s the first thread witch both advanced and stupid enough to take a serious shot at figuring it out. He’s only _just_ managed to scratch the surface and already he can feel his professional curiosity start to overpower his better judgment. If things had turned out differently, it could easily become his life’s work. 

But it’s different now that his red string has been cut. He knows himself well enough to understand that if he were to devote himself to this line of study, he would never be able to let go of Natasha. This research will always be inextricably entwined with her in his head. A large part of him still clings onto her even now.

In a lot of ways, it’s simply safer to think of Steve and the enigma of him. 

Bucky holds true to the promise not to pry, but he doesn’t stop himself from silently turning the puzzle over in his head. The more he learns, the more the mystery deepens.

Because in a lot of ways, Steve is very normal. He burns his tea leaves if he’s distracted. He’s awkward and abrupt with people, especially the hapless tourists who come stumbling into his visitor center. He sleeps lightly at night and heavily in the morning, and he can identify every bird that lives on the mountain by sound. He frowns and laughs and smiles. In almost every aspect of his daily life, Steve is exactly what he appears to be.

But there are other moments where Steve is something else entirely. When Steve brushes against him, and Bucky remembers the feeling of Steve’s magic thrumming through his body. When Bucky’s own magic hums in his veins, electric and shivering. When Steve is standing on the front porch alone with his thoughts, and Bucky looks out the window to see the expression on his face. He seems older then. Much older. 

When Steve shows him all the little secrets of the mountain—the trees filled with red flowers like bursting red stars, the odd long-beaked birds that sip nectar from those same flowers, the hundreds of underground tunnels formed from fast-moving lava. When Steve’s entire world is unfurling in front of Bucky, and he understands why someone would choose to spend the rest of their life here.

During one half-hearted attempt to remain on the original topic of research, he asks Steve about the woman he saw him talking to on the day they fought. 

“That was her,” Bucky says. “The goddess. Luahine.” 

Steve looks at him for a moment before his expression cracks and he barks out a laugh. Probably at what is undoubtedly Bucky self-consciously butchering the pronunciation.

He flushes. “Hey, I know my pronunciation isn’t the best, but—”

“No, no, it’s not—” Steve stifles another snicker. “It’s just—you’re such a _tourist_. Did you read that out of an airplane seatback magazine?”

It takes a moment for it to click for Bucky. “It _is_ her name, isn’t it? All the academic literature about her agrees on that.”

“It’s _a_ name for her.”

Bucky huffs. “Well, that was specific.”

“Let me guess, some poor asshole fifty years ago published a paper about this, and every academic since just cited him because they had better things to do than travel out to the boondocks to double-check a _name_.”

Bucky winces. That was uncomfortably true. “It makes sense,” he says. “The volcano is called Lua Pele.”

“Don’t even get me _started_ on that.”

“It’s on the _fucking_ _sign_.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” Steve says mulishly. “It literally just means volcano.”

“Gods, _fine_ ,” Bucky snaps. “What’s the volcano called then?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Was that really so hard? It’s called Haleakua, house of the gods.” 

“And Luahine means?”

“Old woman. Not the most flattering thing to be calling a goddess, let me tell you. Someone was fucking with the scholar all you academic folks keep citing. Because that is _not_ what we call her here.”

“So? Her name?”

“It’s kinda complicated,” Steve says.

“I’m getting my PhD in one of the obscurest branches of thread magic. My entire _career_ deals in kinda complicated.”

“Well, how do you even begin to name a being that predates language? The short answer is you kinda can’t. She’s the woman who devours the earth. She who shapes the sacred land. You know her as Luahine, but to the Kamakai, the people of this mountain, she is auntie, mother, grandmother: Makuahine. The older generations know her as their teacher: Kumu. And to the children, she’s just their Tutu.” Steve shrugs. “Like I said, complicated.”

Bucky tilts his head, the name ringing like a bell in his mind. “I know that name,” he says. “Tutu.”

Steve arches an eyebrow at him. “Do you? It’s not really well known amongst outsiders.”

“I heard it in town. A boy warned me not to drive up the mountain at night because of her.” Bucky frowns. “I thought you said she wasn’t dangerous.”

“I never said she wasn’t dangerous. I just said she was _marginally less_ dangerous than other volcanic deities.” Steve snorts. “She’s still a volcano goddess. You’d be an idiot to ever think of her as _harmless_.”

Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s getting the sneaking suspicion that Steve is enjoying this conversation a little too much. “Okay, well. What about the marching ghosts?”

“Spirits of the warriors and kings of the old kingdom. Don’t fuck with them, they absolutely will kill you if you don’t show respect.” Which is frankly horrifying.

“Great,” Bucky says. “That’s just great. Really helpful of you not telling me that there are homicidal ghosts living on your doorstep. Warn a guy next time?”

Steve shrugs. “If you run into them, you’re pretty much dead anyway, so what’s the point of warning you about it?”

“Well, fuck you too.” 

Steve sends him a wide shit-eating grin. “It’s surprisingly fun telling you about all the things on this mountain that can kill you. Do another one.”

Bucky sighs. “Uhh, the only other one was something called a Ha Ole?” At that Steve’s smile drops, and he immediately flushes a deep red. Bucky raises an eyebrow. “So uhh,” he says, watching the blush spread all the way down to the collar of Steve’s shirt. “What _is_ a Ha Ole?”

Steve groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “Oh well, that’s—that would be me.”

“ _You?_ A big scary monster?”

“Ha Ole means no breath. I’m something very strange to many people,” Steve waves his left hand with a sheepish smile. “No soulmate, no soul. No soul, no breath.”

And there are sometimes moments when Bucky convinces himself that he’s looking for the extraordinary in the mundane. That Steve is an odd but ultimately normal person, and Bucky is searching for something in him that isn’t there. It’s an easy thing to do after Natasha. So much of her was carefully veiled by the ordinary. Bucky learned to parse it out, but now he wonders if he’s reading subtext that doesn’t exist in other people.

But this is a moment where Bucky is certain his instincts aren’t lying to him.  That in many ways, Steve and Natasha are alike. Because why else would a child speak of vengeful ghosts, a volcano goddess, and Steve Rogers in the same breath?

 

* * *

 

“We’re getting rid of the boar head,” Steve declares one day. “And you’re helping me.”

Bucky looks up from where he’d been shoving broken strands of the goddess’s hair around a dish. Steve’s standing in front of him, a bag full of cleaning supplies slung over his shoulder. “Fuck no,” Bucky says.

Steve snatches up the dish. “This isn’t up for negotiation. You’ve been sleeping on my couch for way too long.”

“I _like_ the couch.”

“No, you don’t.”

Bucky just slouches deeper into his seat. “Yeah, but I’d rather deal with that than clean that hellhole of a cabin.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just a little dust,” Steve says because he’s a fucking liar.

“I have work to do.” Bucky makes a half-hearted grab for the dish, but Steve smoothly steps out of reach. “Actual research work that I’m being paid for. You could very well be keeping me from a major breakthrough.”

Steve stares him down for a moment longer. Then he snorts. “Fine, Mr. Scientist.” He plunks down the dish, scattering some of the strands of hair. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your oh so fascinating research.” Steve shoots him a smug smile before traipsing out the door.

Bucky groans at how neatly Steve called his bluff. He’s completely hitting a wall in his research, and it’s not because the goddess’s hair is a particularly challenging puzzle to unravel. Sure, he’s found some interesting properties, but they’re all pretty much within the scope of his expectations. The volcano goddess’s hair largely reacts exactly as he’d expect it to react to fire and water magics. It can be spun and woven into a serviceable fabric given enough time, but its usefulness is limited. There are some fibers with dynamic unpredictable magic, and then there are some that’re mostly inert aside from some core elemental affinities. Bucky had been hoping for the former, but he got the latter.

He’s _bored_.

Bucky should’ve packed up and gone home to plunk out a paper analyzing the data he collected. He should’ve wrapped this project up the moment he realized it wouldn’t bear much fruit. He should’ve jumped back into his work with Stark about whether arbitrary categorizations of what constitutes ‘thread’ are limiting the scope of thread witches’ magic. Before Bucky left, they’d been making good headway on coaxing steel cables into behaving like the tendons of a muscle. There’s really only one thing keeping Bucky here, and it’s Steve.

The more he gets to know the man, the more he wants to learn. Even if Bucky uncovered every last secret about Steve, he gets the sense that there would still be more to learn. There would still be parts of Steve that would continue to surprise him.

Bucky pushes to his feet with a sigh and follows Steve outside. He doesn’t manage to catch up to him until they’re almost at the other cabin. When Steve does catch sight of Bucky walking behind him, he doesn’t say anything, but the smile tilting up the corners of his mouth speaks volumes. They enter the cabin together in companionable silence.

The state of the room is just as bad as Bucky remembers it. Maybe even a bit worse because now they have to actually clean everything. He sighs. It’s going to be a long day.

They get to work, starting with the curtains, the rug, and the bed linens. Bucky carries everything outside to beat the dust out of them while Steve stays inside to wipe down the windows and the furniture. Then they sweep all the detritus on the floor out the door. All the grass in front of the cabin is turning grey with dust. The faucets spit out rust-colored water for a few minutes before it turns clear, but they are able to eventually get to washing the linens in the metal tub.

Bucky spends the whole time sweating and bickering good-naturedly with Steve, and the time manages to pass pleasantly fast. Still, he’s bone-tired by the time afternoon rolls around. It’s hard work, and it’s the kind that doesn’t really get done without some old-fashioned elbow grease. He honestly hasn’t done this kind of thing since he was a kid, and his parents would occasionally get it into their heads that this sort of thing ‘built character.’ And maybe it does. Bucky’s gotten lazy after spending years cleaning his apartment with a few mumbled words and a flick of his hand.

“How much does this thing even weigh?” he mutters as he stares down at the boar. It’s still leaning against the headboard, watching their progress with a glassy imperious gaze.

Steve glances up from where he’s scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain out of the floor. “The boar?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda fucking huge.” Honestly, that’s understating it. The boar must’ve weighed hundreds of pounds when it was alive. The head alone completely dwarfs Steve’s torso.

“At the very least, we could probably lift it together.”

Bucky pokes the tip of its tusk with a frown. “Do you actually want to touch it though?”

Steve makes a face at him. “What do you think? But we still need to get rid of it.”

Bucky cocks his head as an idea tingles in the back of his head. There’s a spell. He honestly forgot it even existed because it’s been so long since he last used it.

Steve sends him a warning look. “No magic, remember? We’re too close to the crater for it to be safe.”

“You said anchored spells were fine though.”

“What’s your point? Levitation charms are free-floating by nature.”

Bucky sends Steve a sly grin. “Who said I was going to levitate anything?” He tugs his twine out of his pocket and starts to fiddle around with it.

Steve stands up and walks over to watch what he’s doing. His eyebrows rise. “A knot spell? Aren’t those only really used for passive or defensive magic?”

“Yup,” Bucky says. He stops to undo some loops. It’s been a while since he used this spell, and his fingers don’t quite remember what they’re supposed to do.

Steve watches him make more progress. “A spell protecting against bad luck,” he says.

“A _modified_ protection spell.”

Bucky finishes the knot and tosses it at Steve. He catches it and stares down at it with a confused frown. “It looks pretty standard,” he says after studying it for a bit. “It’s meant to ward off misfortune, except for—” he turns over the knot and looks at the loops of string that are out of place. “Well, except for this right here. This modifies the spell to protect against…physical danger?”

Bucky grins. “Well, look who knows their knots.”

Steve hands it back. “I don’t even know what spell it is.”

“This,” Bucky says, gesturing grandly, “is what paid my way through undergrad. And it’s how I ended up deciding to become a thread witch. It’s actually a furniture moving spell.”

He places the knot on top of the bristly length of the boar’s snout, concentrating a bit to push some of his magic into the spell. For a moment, nothing happens, and then it starts to rock. It rolls off the bed, thunking on the floor before slowly moving towards the door. The wooden base scrapes against the floor, scratching long scours into its surface. Steve doesn’t even seem to notice that Bucky’s kinda fucking up the floorboards.

“You turned a protection spell into one that _moves furniture_ ,” he says, flatly incredulous. The boar head scoots over the threshold and out the cabin before lumbering to a stop in the grass outside.

Bucky grins. “Yup.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had to work around suppression wards. They used to be pretty popular in high school classrooms. They prevents students from disrupting class with magic. But like you said, they can’t do anything to stop an anchored spell because it’s a self-sustaining closed loop. And interestingly enough, working a physical danger ward component into a knot spell like this generates a small amount of kinetic magic.”

“You used the metaphysical principles of magic to invent a brand new spell just so you could fuck with your teachers.” It’s impossible to tell whether the expression on Steve’s face is awed or disgusted. Bucky’s taking the liberty to interpret it as the former.

“Necessity is the mother of invention as they say. It’s shocking how much havoc you can wreak with good timing and a tiny bit of physical force.”

“You’ve talked _at length_ about the necessity of bureaucratic regulations on magic, and you pulled this shit in high school?”

“I’m multi-faceted, what can I say? And to be fair, I ended up selling the patent to a shipping company. The fact that it’s more of a physical displacement spell rather than a levitation one means that weight isn’t as much of a factor, and so puts less strain on the caster. The number of workplace injuries decreased dramatically.”

Steve laughs incredulously. “What the fuck, why not?”

Bucky snorts and walks outside into the late afternoon sun. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’m not an idiot, y’know.”

“No,” Steve says, his tone subtly shifting to something more thoughtful. “You definitely are not.” He joins Bucky outside, and they soak in the warmth of the day together.

“But my common sense leaves something to be desired, huh?” Bucky says wryly.

Steve grins up at him. “Maybe a bit. You’re the smartest idiot I’ve ever met.”

“I prefer the stupidest genius, thank you.” Steve rolls his eyes at that with a soft huffed laugh.

Bucky rocks back and forth on his heels, smiling back at him. He wishes he could stay like this forever. Just standing here with Steve, covered in dust and sweat. It’s been a long time since he was able to just be in the moment like this. There’s a clarity to the world that feels exhilarating and strange. He’s always overanalyzed everything too much—by turns too cautious when he shouldn’t be, and then too reckless when he should slow down. But here, Bucky knows the right thing to do is to slow down and just enjoy.

He will have to leave eventually. And they’ll both go on with their lives. They’ll visit each other surely, but there’s something about this particular period of time that feels oddly important. It’s the type of moment Bucky knows, even as he lives it, that’ll soon be a memory he’ll turn over in his head for years to come. A soft gold-hued memory like a well-loved photograph.

Steve meets his gaze, his eyes filled with the same emotion that’s welling up inside Bucky. For a moment, they’re like mirrors reflecting back on each other. Then Steve blinks and looks away.

“You should visit me,” Bucky says, “after I leave. I can show you around the city. Have you ever been to New England before?”

“Oh,” Steve says, and there’s a expression on his face that Bucky can’t quite interpret. “I haven’t. I’ve never really gotten the chance to get out there.”

“It’s beautiful this time of year. I think you’d really like it.”

“Maybe.”

There’s something closed off about his body language, and Bucky doesn’t know what he said wrong. He doesn’t think he misread the signals. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I get it.”

“No, it’s not that. Shit, sorry,” Steve says, flushing a little. “I just don’t really travel that much. It’s my own baggage. It doesn’t have anything to do with—I mean, I _like_ you.” He goes even redder when he realizes what he just said.

“You like me, huh?”

“Like you didn’t know that already,” Steve grumbles. “You’re not terrible company.”

“High praise indeed.”

“Oh, shut up.” Steve stutters for a bit before stubbornly pressing on despite his obvious embarrassment. “You’re a genuinely decent person, and you actually care about people. You’re passionate about your work, and you’re damn good at it. And—and I know it’s not something you like to talk about, and I don’t know how many people know enough to say this, but you should at least hear it.” He takes a breath, the redness on his face receding a little, “But what you did. What you achieved when you cut your red string. I mean, yeah, it was a really stupid thing you did. But it’s one of the most impressive feats of magic I’ve ever heard of. I don’t even know if you’re aware of this, but gods, you have a better intuitive understanding of how thread magic functions than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

“I—thank you,” Bucky says. He realizes he’s grinning like an idiot, but he can’t bring himself to stop at all.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” Steve says without any bite. He starts walking back to the house, and Bucky trails behind him, still smiling.

 

* * *

 

There’s something wonderful about artificial rain. 

It doesn’t have the musky earthy smell of natural rain. It sheets down evenly on the rooftop like perfectly timed drumbeats rather than the more sporadic pattering he’s used to. And every drop of it is suffused with human magic. When Bucky was a kid, he used to practice recognizing different types of magic by trying to figure out what kinds of people contributed their magic to the rain spell. 

In the city, it’d been a lot of stone and steel and lightning, almost to the point that the raindrops seemed to crackle against his skin as they landed. Here, the people’s magic is tied so closely to the ocean that the rain tastes like salt brine.

He’s sitting with Steve on the grass outside, letting the rain fall on his head. Steve’s head is tipped back, his eyes closed. He’s smiling. For a moment, Bucky watches little drops trickle down his cheek. “Is this even legal?” he asks.

Steve flicks an eye open at him. “What? The rain?”

“Yeah, rain summoning. I thought the guys at the agricultural bureau were super anal about when and where folks can do a rain summoning. It can really fuck up an ecosystem if they’re not careful about it. What with the artificial redistribution of atmospheric moisture.” 

Steve snorts. “Seriously, you have _such_ a hard-on for bureaucratic red tape. Which is fucking weird considering you’re in academia.”

“I _do not_.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who even mentions federally mandated benchmarks.”

“Well, _I’m sorry_ for being concerned about whether the reckless overuse of rain summoning rituals is potentially causing catastrophic fluctuations in our climate.”

“Gods, you’re so—” Steve breaks off, rolling his eyes. “If you _must_ know, this is a perfectly legal, government-approved rain summoning. All the proper forms were filled out, and the climate inspectors already came through and rubber-stamped the whole shindig. The town is in the rain shadow of the volcano. They perform this ritual every year to ensure the groundwater reservoir doesn’t run dry.” Steve flops backs onto the grass, splashing muddy droplets all over Bucky. “Now enjoy the goddamn rain. It’s going to be a long time before we see any more this side of the mountain.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and lies back next to Steve. There’s mud soaking into his clothes, the chill from the rain is sinking deep into his skin, and he finds that he doesn’t care about any of that one bit. 

Artificial rain isn’t nearly as romantic as the natural kind, but he’s always had a soft spot for it himself. Rain summoning is first and foremost a collaborative effort. In times of need, all the members of a community come together to pool their magic to call the rain. It’s a testament to the sheer power of what people can achieve together.

This particular storm is a powerful one, which is impressive in and of itself. Whole cities can pool their magics together and still fall short of the amount of rain created by this one town.

“It’s a lot of rain for such a small group of people,” Bucky says.

Steve hums. “Familial and communal bonds lie at the core of the Kamakai’s life and values. Their bonds to each other are both many and strong, and their ties to this land have been built upon over the course of millennia. Their roots run deep, and it shows in communal ritual magics like this.”

“It does, it really really does,” Bucky says. “They stopped doing rain summonings back home. They were worried it would drain all the rain out of the entire county if they did it too much, so they stopped. I always thought we lost something vital when we stopped.”

“It’s not as sustainable in land-locked places. The moisture’s gotta come from somewhere.” Steve turns over on his side to look at Bucky, mud smudged all over his cheek. “Do you miss it?”

“Yeah, I do. A lot.” Bucky smiles a little sheepishly. “They used to do it every two years, and everyone would get the day off to go watch. Then I moved to the city, and no one really cared about when the rain summonings were. And then they stopped altogether. It’s nice that they’re still doing it out here.”

“I guess it _is_ a bit of an old-fashioned tradition.”

There’s a pause in the downpour before it begins again, less torrential than before but still holding strong. The ritual itself is finished, Bucky thinks. But the rains will continue for another few days at least. Steve pulls himself to his feet and stretches, his shirt sticking to his torso, his hair slicked flat against his forehead. He grins down at Bucky. “Honestly, this is my favorite time of year,” he says. “I love it when it rains, and we really don’t see enough of it here.”

“We could’ve gone into town and joined in,” Bucky says. “That would’ve been pretty fun.”

Steve’s smile freezes a little, his body twitching. He turns away from Bucky. His shoulders are stiff, and Bucky knows he misstepped yet again. “Well,” Steve says. “You could’ve gone if you wanted to.”

“But not you,” Bucky says, pressing when he knows he shouldn’t. He just wants to know _why._ “You don’t leave the mountain very often, do you?”

“Don’t.” Steve’s voice comes out just shy of sharp. 

Bucky stands up and looks at him for a moment. Then he lets the subject drop. “We should head back inside and dry off,” he says.

He grimaces as he tugs the damp fabric of his shirt away from his skin. and he tries to rub off some of the mud and grass stains smudging his shirt. Steve had been smarter and wore a shirt in some dark material that would be easy to wash. Bucky is wearing the white T-shirt from his first day here, and it’d gone translucent from all the water.

Steve watches Bucky grumble over the state of his poor shirt for a moment. Then he turns away and rubs a hand against the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “We should go inside. And uhh, you should probably change clothes.”

They tromp up the porch steps, water squishing out of their shoes. They end up tracking mud all over the living room floor before Steve strips all the way down to his boxers and glares at Bucky until he does the same. Their soggy clothes get piled in a corner by the front door. 

Bucky amiably lets Steve attack him with an old towel and then shoo him into the shower. Even over the groaning of the old pipes, he can hear Steve despairing good-naturedly at the mud splattered all over his house. Bucky lingers in the shower a little longer than he normally would. There’s nothing quite like taking a hot shower after sitting in a rainstorm. 

He comes out flushed pink and clean, his hair sticking up all over the place after being toweled dry. He finds Steve laying towels on the floor to sop up the muddy water. He’d managed to get the fireplace going while Bucky was in the shower, and the warmth of it is just beginning to suffuse the entire room. “Your turn,” Bucky says.

Steve glances up from where he’s mopping at a puddle next to the couch. He blinks.

Bucky settles on the rug in front of the fire, letting himself luxuriate in the heat of it for a moment. He lets out a long contented sigh. “This is nice.”

“There’s a leak,” Steve blurts out. Bucky glances up at where he’s standing. Steve looks a little embarrassed as he points at the water pooling by the couch. “Sorry, I didn’t notice because there was so much water everywhere,” Steve jerks his head to the corner where Bucky’s backpack is, “but it got your stuff all wet. I have—there’s some spare clothes in the bedroom dresser.” With that, he hurries out of the room to the shower, color flushing the back of his neck. 

“Wai—” Bucky starts to say, but the bathroom door’s already swinging closed. He sighs and rubs a hand against his face, his own blush heating his cheeks. 

Bucky gets up and checks his bag, but Steve hadn’t been kidding. His entire bag had been soaked through. The cushions, the blankets, and pillows of Bucky’s makeshift bed are also sopping wet. Bucky sighs and retrieves a stockpot from the kitchen to catch any more leaking water. He lays out his clothes in front of the fire to dry off. Then he makes for Steve’s bedroom.

He’s never really gotten the chance to look here before, but there’s nothing special to look at in the first place. Steve’s room is pretty much the same as the rest of the house. The same type of furnishings, the same homey lived-in feeling, the same attention to cleanliness. The bed has been neatly made, the linens are fresh and recently changed. There’s a sketchbook open on top of the dresser with some sort of experimental sigil sketched out.

Bucky rifles through the dresser until he comes up with a pair of sweatpants with an elastic waistband and a soft over-sized T-shirt. They’d both be too big on Steve, but they would fit just right on Bucky. Still, he hesitates.

Thread witches are weird about clothes. It’s a bit of an occupational hazard. After a certain amount of time spent studying how people’s magic interact with cloth and thread, you can’t help but become—conscious of it in everyday life. The way someone’s magic seeps into their clothing. It becomes a part of them, an extension of their magic and identity. Wearing someone else’s clothes, wrapping yourself up in their magic, it’s just so— _intimate_. Almost voyeuristic.

He hears the shower turn off behind him, and then Steve’s voice as he comes out of the bathroom. “Why aren’t you dressed? There should be something in there that can fit you. I’m not _that_ small.”

Bucky turns around, still holding Steve’s clothes in his hand. He gestures helplessly, at a loss for what to say. Steve’s standing in the doorway, one towel slung around his waist, another draped over his head like a hood. He’s backlit by the hallway light, but Bucky can make out just enough of his expression to watch it shift from amused to confused and then finally to flustered.

“Oh gods, _right_. You’re a—I’m _so_ sorry.” Steve waves his arms around a little as he takes a step forward to reach for the bundle of clothing out of Bucky’s hands. “I wasn’t thinking. I forgot that thread witches don’t really like to wear other people’s clothes.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s ahh—” Bucky looks down at the soft fabric of the shirt, feels the hum of Steve’s magic tickle his skin. And weirdly enough, it doesn’t feel particularly intrusive. Steve’s magic presses against his like a comforting weight, familiar and oddly nostalgic. It’s like the first time Bucky stepped into this house, and he felt overwhelmed by the sense of safety and warmth and _home_. 

“I’ve felt your magic before,” he says. “The day you untangled my red string, you touched my hand, and—” he coughs, suddenly feeling self-conscious, “I felt it.”

Steve blinks up at him for a minute before the words seem to register. “Oh, right. That makes sense, yeah. This is just a little surface level contact. Pretty small compared to uhh, _that_.”

“Your magic briefly intermixing with mine?” Bucky offers dryly.

Steve groans and covers his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that my magic would react like that otherwise I would’ve warned you.”

“No harm, no foul. And honestly, it was pretty damn fascinating.” Bucky tilts his head thoughtfully. “Your magic never did that before when you—?”

“I’ve never attempted to touch anyone else’s red string before you,” Steve says honestly. “I didn’t even know I could do it until well, I did it. It kinda caught me off guard.”

Bucky blinks. “I didn’t even notice it surprised you.”

“You were uhh, distracted,” Steve says, visibly trying to keep his blush tamped down, “by the scientifically impossible things happening in front of you.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“So anyway, I’ll leave you to get changed.” Steve dodges around Bucky to quickly snatch some pajamas from the dresser before disappearing back into the bathroom. 

Bucky watches him, then quickly slips on the borrowed clothes. Steve’s magic curls around him like a contented cat, and he lets out a long sigh, some of the tension in his muscles immediately unwinding. 

Belatedly, he realizes that he’s smiling a bit goofily. Bucky manages to force his facial muscles into behaving just as Steve walks back into the room in a T-shirt with sleeves that come down past his elbows and a pair of pants he’s positively swimming in.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “Are _all_ your pajamas too big for you?” 

“They’re from the bargain bin. Nothing fits me there,” Steve grumbles out before flopping on the bed. “Call them aspirational.”

“You’re not just going to randomly grow a foot taller and gain fifty pounds of muscle mass.”

“Hey! Stranger things have happened. There’s some really fucking weird magic out there.”

Bucky snorts. “Good night. Thanks for lending me your pajamas.” He turns and walks to the door.

“Uhh,” Steve says. “The leak’s still there you know. It’s right above the couch.” He clears his throat. “Where you normally sleep.”

Bucky pauses and turns back around. “Then where am I supposed to sleep?” he asks, but he’s already starting to get a sense of where this is going. If nothing else, the look on Steve’s face speaks volumes of what he’s about to suggest. There’d been a lot of embarrassed blushing today, what with the both of them fumbling through all sorts of awkward topics and faux pas, but Steve somehow manages to look more flustered now than he has all night. 

Despite his obvious embarrassment, he rolls his eyes. “Don’t screw with me, Barnes. There’s literally only one bed in this entire house, and I’m reasonably sure you’re comfortable enough with your masculinity to cope with sharing for the night.”

“My sense of masculinity has nothing to do with this.”

“Just get in the fucking bed.”

Bucky gets in the fucking bed.

 

* * *

 

Bucky wakes up with his face pressed into someone else’s hair, the short strands tickling his nose as he rolls over and yawns. For a few good long minutes, he just lies there. It’s the warmest he’s felt in ages, and all he wants to do is press in and burrow himself into that heat even more. He smiles and nuzzles against a smooth stretch of skin. The back of someone’s neck, his mind notes absently. The person sighs, a gust of breath brushing against the crook of his elbow where it’s curled around—

Bucky blinks awake.

His body is pressed flush chest to ankle against Steve, who’s still dead to the world and blissfully unaware that he’s octopus-cuddling Bucky. He can feel Steve’s magic chiming pleasantly against his senses. Vague muted colors stir at the edges of his vision, and there’s the sound of a woman singing a Gaelic lullaby, the quality of it tinny like it’s playing from a radio in the next room. Belatedly he realizes that he’s catching the bleed-off of Steve’s dreams.

He lets himself linger for a lot longer than he should, just soaking in the sheer goodness of being pressed up against Steve. Close contact like this isn’t something he normally enjoys, but somehow he doesn’t mind. Bucky breathes in the scent of clean sheets and Steve’s shampoo. He could spend an eternity just lying here beside Steve. He hasn’t felt this comfortable with another person since—well.

He sits up, carefully untangles his limbs from Steve’s, and slips out of bed. 

It takes about fifteen minutes of puttering around the kitchen making coffee for his heart rate to drop back to normal. Bucky leans his forehead against the cool surface of the refrigerator and tries not to freak out. Because he’s finally starting to get a sense what all of this is shaping up to be. He’d been skirting around the edges of it for a while now, just letting himself enjoy without thinking too hard about it. But eventually, he’s going to have to face the music—that he’s on the way to—well, he might already be fully there. He could already be long past the point of no return.

Because he’s slept in someone else’s bed before. He’s woken up cuddling another person before. And he’s definitely shared dreams before. When he was a kid, he used to fall asleep to the teal waves of calm from his mom sleeping beside him. Sometimes he caught the agitated reveries of the few one nights stands he brought back to the dorm during his undergrad years. It’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence to inadvertently share dreams with strangers. 

But it’s different with Steve. It feels domestic—intimate. And he sure as hell hasn’t ever worn someone else’s _clothes_ before. 

Bucky picks up his mug and wanders into the living room. The fire from last night has long since gone cold, but at least his clothes are dry now. The rain is still pattering on the roof in even drumbeats. He takes a sip of his coffee and squints at the still-damp couch, mutters a drying spell under his breath before sitting down. The pot catching the leak is right next to him, the water inside sloshing a little as the cushions dip under his weight. The plink-plink of rainwater dripping into it is strangely soothing.

And despite the near-panic of Bucky’s private epiphany, there’s still a warmth to the entire morning, lingering from where Steve’s skin had pressed into his. He can still catch some impressions of Steve’s dreams even though he’s in the next room. It’s pleasant and comforting, and eventually, the tension eases out of Bucky despite himself. Then he can only sit there, sipping his coffee, smiling quietly to himself. Yeah, there’s no hope for him now, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. 

There’s a thump from the next room as Steve wakes up and bangs his elbow against the wall followed by some colorful swearing. Bucky snorts into his coffee. He tracks the various bumps and clatters as Steve stumbles through his morning routine before emerging into the hallway, barefoot and sleep-rumpled.

“You made coffee,” Steve says accusatorially, cradling the mug Bucky left for him on the kitchen counter.

“Good morning to you too.”

“You’re terrible at making coffee,” Steve says and gulps a slug of it down.

“More for me then,” Bucky replies.

Steve drains the rest of his cup before bolting back into the kitchen. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you have it all to yourself,” he calls out.

Bucky finishes his own mug and follows Steve. He finds him holding the coffee pot hostage and glaring at him. Bucky holds out his mug for a refill, and Steve glares harder.

“You know,” Bucky says, “with a drying spell and a plastic tarp, we probably could’ve avoided the bed sharing thing last night.” He pauses thoughtfully. “The borrowing your clothes thing too now that I think about it.”

He watches the color rising in Steve’s cheeks as he sets down the coffee pot to cover his face with his hands. “Oh gods, _now_ you tell me?”

Bucky rescues the pot while Steve’s distracted and pours himself another cup. “I only realized it myself when I dried out the couch like ten minutes ago,” he says and takes a sweet sweet sip of his hard-won coffee.

“We’re _idiots_.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “we kinda are.”

And there’s still a part of him thinks he probably should be worried. He’s never really existed in another person’s space like this. It should be new and intimidating, but instead the domesticity and the proximity settles around him like a warm blanket. It’s the most natural thing in the world to have Steve move himself into his life. And for the first time since Natasha, he can see a path into the future. For the first time since Natasha, he can believe he’s going to be okay.

Maybe it’s because he finally has the time to let his feelings just _be_. Bucky’s never really had the luxury to just leisurely explore something new like this before. There was always a deadline or some other pressing obligation waiting in the wings. But now, he has time in spades. Even enough time to leave some clothes and a couch dry out overnight without paying a single thought to using magic to speed up the process.

“You’re in a chipper mood this morning,” Steve comments. 

“I guess I am,” Bucky says, smiling.

They spend the rest of the morning patching up the leak with a combination of dubious magic and a lot of duct tape. It’s pretty shoddily put together, but it does the job. Then, because they have the time, Steve starts a stew on low heat with the full intention of letting it simmer for a few hours before dinner starts. Bucky messes around with the goddess’s hair, trying to see if he can coax out the black color volcanic glass normally takes on. It’s a waste of time, but he doesn’t really care. He can allow himself a little happiness and relaxation to fool around for a while. He’s earned that at the very least.

Then Bucky hears the sound of a pan clattering to the ground.

“You okay?” he calls out and gets no response.

He hurries over to the kitchen and stops short at the sight of Steve kneeling on the floor, assorted vegetables scattered around him from the fallen pan. His face is completely white, and he stares out blankly at some distant point. He doesn’t even seem to register that Bucky walked into the room.

Bucky leans over and gently touches his shoulder. “Steve?” he murmurs.

Steve snaps out of his stupor like an explosion. The breath leaves his lungs like he’d been punched. He grabs onto Bucky’s shirt, dragging him down to the floor with him. Steve stares at him with wide, terrified eyes. “ _The wards_ ,” he gasps out. “Someone—they’re down. The wards are down.”

The blood drains from Bucky’s face. “ _What?_ ”

“I don’t know what happened. I think—” Steve brings a shaking hand to his face, covering his mouth, takes a steadying breath, “Someone must’ve sabotaged the anchor points. The wards just collapsed in on themselves.”

“Who would even _do_ that?”

Steve stumbles to his feet and clutches the edge of the counter to remain standing. He’s looking to the top of the mountain where the wards had been most concentrated. “I don’t know, but fuck—Bucky, whoever it is didn’t just go after the magic suppression wards.” He starts to run to the door. “We need to go. Now.”

“Wait, Steve!” Bucky grabs onto his arm and pulls him to a stop. “This person, whoever they are, they clearly want to wreak havoc. They’re dangerous, and they might still be _up there_.”

Steve whirls on him, his eyes filled with an animal panic. “You don’t get it,” he snaps out. “Bucky, they took down _everything_ , including the wards stabilizing the _entire fucking volcano_.”

 

* * *

 

They run to the top of the mountain, stopping just short of the crater. The rain from the summoning ritual had stopped, seemingly disrupted by the sudden collapse of the wards. There are little rivulets of water running past their feet, the footing a little muddy and uneven. Bucky has to concentrate hard on not slipping. 

There’s no sign of the intruder. Steve looks around, his expression taking on a glazed blank look as he reaches his senses out through the wards, searching for answers. He frowns. “I think,” he says. “I think he’s still here.”

Bucky stiffens. “He? The intruder?”

Steve’s eyes sweeping back and forth until it rests on the distant peak of the crater’s edge, the highest point on the mountain. “He’s at the summit. He’s—shit, I know who he is.”

“You _know_ him?”

“He’s a zealot. A crackpot witch hunter who kicked up trouble here a few years back.” Steve starts to stride purposely around the edge of the crater. “He got it into his head that the goddess was actually an illegal witch hiding on top of the mountain. He stormed in, challenged her, tried to kill her. And Makuahine, she didn’t take too kindly to being called an imposter.”

They’re both running at a dead sprint now, the wind whipping around their legs as they draw closer to the summit. Slowly, the silhouette of a figure standing at the top of the mountain comes into view. He’s staring into the sky shouting at something unseen, but they can’t hear what he’s saying over the roaring winds. The clouds are roil dark and angry in the sky, and though the goddess is nowhere in sight, her presence is obvious. Bucky shudders, animal instinct screaming at him to turn and flee.

Steve’s steps stumble as he steps onto the pathway leading directly up to the summit, but he presses grimly on, sweat darkening his shirt, his mouth pursed white. Bucky follows after him and nearly falls to his knees when the wind abruptly stops as he, too, steps on the path. The air is dead and quiet, only broken by the intruder’s shouting, now loud and clear. He turns on them, his movements erratic. Bucky’s eyes widen with recognition. 

“I saw him in town,” he says. “Weeks ago when I went to call Na—my soulmate.”

Steve’s shoulders visibly tense. “That means he’s had the time to be _thorough_. We can’t let him cast any magic here, not when both the suppression and stabilization wards are down. He’ll blow us all clean off the side of the mountain.”

The scar on the man’s face twists as he smiles grotesquely at them. In full daylight, the full extent of the damage is clear. It spans his almost entire face, extending to his ear where patches of his hair can no longer grow. It’s pink, shiny, pockmarked, and overall sickening to behold. “The goddess did _that_ to him?”

“Not directly, no,” Steve says quietly. “There’s no telling what form a misfortune curse takes, but he was ex-military working as an independent contractor for a security company. There’s a lot that can go horrifically wrong in that line of work.”

Despite the low volume of Steve’s voice, it still catches the man’s attention. He focuses in on Steve immediately. “You,” he says. “I know you. You’re her flunky,  you—” he shakes his head and grins, madness gleaming in his eyes, “you know where she is. Where’s she hiding?”

Steve takes a step forward, raising his hands carefully. “Brock—it’s Brock, right?” he says, keeping his tone even. “She’s not here right now. She’s ahh, visiting a friend in town.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Brock snarls. “I know she’s here. You’re hiding her somewhere. She was cowering behind these wards, and I know she ran when I took them down. _Where is she?_ ” His voice grows louder as he works himself back into a frenzy. It’s clear that Brock is edging closer and closer into doing something drastic and extremely stupid that’ll probably kill them all.

Bucky grabs onto Steve’s wrist, whispering urgently, “We need to get out of here.”

Steve bats his hand away. “He’s going to blow shit up if we don’t talk him down and get him off the volcano.”

“He’s going to do that _anyway_ , and we’re right in the blast zone,” Bucky hisses.

Brock turns his glare to him. “Who the fuck is that?”

“Just a visiting researcher,” Steve says quickly. “And you’re right, I lied. She’s not visiting a friend. She fled from the mountain when she felt the wards collapse.”

Brock hums. “You know what I think? I think you’re full of shit.”

Steve doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “I promise,” he says, holding Brock’s gaze levelly. “She’s hiding in a fisherman’s house. I’m supposed to come get her when it’s safe.”

It’s a lie so guileless, even Bucky is taken in for a moment. That is before he remembers that the goddess is _here_ —intangible, invisible, and probably pissed as hell. But Steve holds his ground, doesn’t let a flicker of doubt cross his face, utterly calm in the face of immense danger.

“Bring her to me then,” Brock says. “If you’re telling the truth, it’ll just be a quick trip down the mountain.” He smiles broadly, and a shudder runs down Bucky’s spine. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to distract me from your friend here. I’ll take him as hmm…collateral.” 

Bucky’s eyes widen, but before he can protest, Steve cuts him off. “Alright,” he says placidly. There’s a loosening in his entire stance, a visible relaxing as if the danger has passed.

Brock seems to notice Steve’s reaction too, his eyes narrowing at him. “You, come here,” he snaps at Bucky without once looking away from Steve. 

Bucky takes a step then looks at Steve. He’s locked in a staring contest with Brock. He doesn’t send so much as a flicker of a reassuring gaze to Bucky. He’s impossible to read, his entire body completely motionless, save the tiny movement of his left thumb rubbing circles at the base of his little finger. Where the red string would be if he had one. It’s a common tell in a lot of people—grounding themselves in the reassuring tactility of their connection to their soulmate. It’s one of the first things poker players and conmen train themselves out of doing. 

However, it’s a completely contrived gesture on Steve. Steve doesn’t have a red string to draw comfort from, so something like this would do nothing for him. The foreignness of the gesture is immediately apparent to Bucky. Brock, however, wouldn’t understand the significance of it. To him, it would just appear to be any other nervous reaction to a tense situation. He hopes he’s reading the signs correctly.

Bucky walks the rest of the way to Brock where he roughly grabs hold of him and restrains him. “I’ll just bring her to you then,” Steve says. His expression is completely devoid of expression. 

The non-reaction is clearly starting to get to Brock. “If you try to fuck around, I’m going to kill him.”

“Okay,” Steve says and turns to leave. He walks a little ways away before Brock stops him.

“Actually,” he says, stopping Steve. “You take me to her. You’re not getting the chance to warn her.” The line of Steve’s back tenses, and Brock smirks.

And that’s the shape of Steve’s plan, Bucky thinks. Their top priority is to get Brock off the volcano as soon as possible so that any damage he might do can be contained. Whatever happens will happen when they get to the town and Brock realizes he’d been lied to, but at the very least, the resulting outburst won’t literally set off a volcanic eruption. Steve will likely lead them to a house on the outskirts of the town where the damage to bystanders can be minimized. 

It’s a decent plan considering Steve basically came up with it on the fly. But its success depends entirely on how in control of the situation Brock feels. The more in control he feels, the less likely he’ll feel the need to use a display of magic to intimidate them. And for that to work…Bucky takes a breath. 

“Please,” he says, letting all the fear and stress of the situation bleed into his voice. “Just don’t kill me.” He’s no great actor like Steve seems to be. He’s never been particularly good at lying to people. Abysmally bad at it actually. 

But he can let himself feel afraid. He can let all that terror rush forward, and that’s good enough.

Brock sneers down at him, and Bucky lets his eyes go wide, lets his legs weaken and shake, lets his breath judder in his lungs. Because yeah, he’s scared as fuck. He’s being frogmarched down a volcano by a psychopathic witch hunter in a half-cocked plan. He’s placing his faith in Steve. He trusts him. But yeah, he’s still scared shitless. 

His obvious fear seems to be enough to put Brock at ease, and his grip on Bucky’s arm slackens ever so slightly. He doesn’t fully relax his guard, not with his military background and training, but he isn’t teetering on the edge of violence anymore either. Steve sets a steady pace down the mountain. For a moment, it seems like they might be able to pull off the plan.

“You know,” Brock says conversationally, and both Steve and Bucky tense, “I just realized I don’t need a hostage.”

Bucky’s blood turns cold.

“Well, at least not this one,” he continues, roughly jostling Bucky’s arm. “What does the witch care about him? She won’t go quietly if the only thing at stake is the life of a random scientist. What I really need is,” Brock’s eyes gleam, “ _leverage_.” He lifts his arm, letting fire lick up his skin until it engulfs his hand entirely.

Steve whips around, his face going completely white. And Bucky can read his thoughts plain on his face. Because any non-anchored spell would be disastrous, but Brock’s about to cast a fire spell. On a fucking _volcano._

“She’s close to you, isn’t she?” Brock murmurs, seemingly unaware of the danger he just put them all in. “Do you fuck her? Is that how she won your loyalty?” He casts a look over at Steve. “I think I picked the wrong hostage.”

Bucky can literally feel the air growing hotter around him as the exposed magic begins to react to the ambient fire magic saturating the air. His breath is loud in his ears, and the reality that he is literally seconds away from death screams through his head. He can’t run away. Brock still has a vice-like grip on his right arm. He can’t even cast any magic because there’s no way for him to reach the twine in his pocket.

Steve stands barely a yard away from them, but Brock’s attention is entirely fixed on him. If he so much as twitches, Brock will blow them all to hell. Bucky clenches his free hand into a fist. They’re all going to die.

His red string pushes hard into his skin, an unpleasant pressure from how tightly he’s clenching his hand. And that’s when Bucky gets an idea. A crazy, reckless idea that’s almost guaranteed to backfire catastrophically. He catches a loop of his red string between his fingers and sets to work.

Steve and Brock are talking, but he can’t afford to let himself get distracted. Steve is trying to talk Brock down again, but this time, it’s not working. 

“Please,” Steve whispers, “I’ll be your hostage. I’ll do whatever you want just please put out the fire.”

Brock grins. “I should’ve known you would be afraid of this.” He lets the flame play over his fingers, casting his face in a ghastly shifting light. “After all, fires burn witches.”

“Just put out the fire.”

“I don’t think I will,” Brock says cheerfully. “I’m starting to think it might be very necessary for me to get exactly what I want.”

The air around them is starting to blister, searing their skin hot and red. Brock is so caught up in the intoxicating high of getting Steve to beg that he doesn’t even notice. 

Bucky takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He tugs the last loop of his clumsily tied knot and shoves it against Brock’s chest. His red string pulses, his ears pop from the sudden shift in air pressure, and his magic _screams_. The world booms around him.

 

* * *

 

They all go flying, landing hard on the ground.

Bucky scrambles to his feet and runs to Steve who’s still dazed by the sudden blast of magic. He yanks him to his feet and pulls him into a sprint down the mountain. Brock got blown several dozen yards up the mountain, but he won’t be down for long. Bucky doesn’t even bother checking whether Brock’s fire had been extinguished in all the commotion. 

It takes another few seconds for Steve to finally snap out of it and start running without Bucky’s help. “ _What the hell was that?_ ” he shouts.

Bucky just waves his left hand at him where his red string flops around wildly, still tied in the hasty one-handed knot.

“You used the _furniture moving spell?_ ” Steve yells, aghast. “It didn’t do _that_ before!” 

“It’s still basically a protection spell,” Bucky gasps out. “Run now. Talk later”

Behind them, there’s the groaning of trees as they slowly keel over, their trunks cracking in two. Bucky only got a brief glimpse of the damage done, but it’s impressive. A pulse of raw kinetic energy had rushed out from Bucky’s little knot spell. He’d hoped using his own red string to anchor and channel a spell like this would amplify it’s effects, but he hadn’t imagined that it would be even _close_ to this strong.

Amidst the cacophony of falling trees, Brock roars. 

There’s another rush of magic, the quality of it distinctly different from the spell Bucky cast. It’s hotter, angrier, more chaotic—and it’s almost immediately followed by an ominous rumbling in the ground beneath them. He can feel the fire flaring up behind him, the heat pressing against his back almost like a physical blow. It’s then that Bucky can no longer resist the urge to look over his shoulder to see how far away the fire is from them. He almost stumbles to a stop when he does look back, but this time, Steve is the one to help him stay on his feet and keep running. 

Because the air itself seems to be on fire, the flames suspended in midair, leaving the grass and the trees entirely untouched. Blue flames lick along the rocky ground. The earth is splitting and cracking open. Brock stands in the middle of it all, almost entirely obscured by the smoke and fire. Even from this distance, Bucky can see that he’s terrified. It’s the first time that he’s shown such an emotion since they met him, and it makes him utterly, inescapably human. Bucky looks away before the fire converges on Brock, tries to shut out the sound of him crying out with pain. He keeps running. 

The ground continues to fracture, and in his peripheral vision, Bucky can see lava begin to overflow from the newly formed crevices. It’s not like how he’d imagined a volcanic eruption at all. He’s seen all the dramatic videos and pictures of volcanos bursting violently, lava flying out and arcing dozens of feet in the air. Impossible to outrun the burning rock raining to the ground. 

But this isn’t anything like that. The lava splashes out of the ground the way water does when a pitcher overturns too quickly, and it flows down the mountain in a slow red river. It’s honestly more terrifying like this. The steady inexorable tide of lava eating up the ground behind them, unchanging, impossible to stop. Like a hunting wolf leisurely stalking you until you’re too exhausted to keep running.

They keep going, their frantic pace outstripping the lava, but it’s impossible to forget its inevitable approach. When the ground starts to level out, and Bucky starts to feel some relief that they’re finally reaching the base of the mountain.

Suddenly, Steve stops running. 

Bucky nearly topples over at the abrupt change in pace. He turns around. Steve’s staring at a fixed point on the ground, his mouth set in a grim line. 

Bucky runs back up to where Steve’s standing. “What’re you doing?” he demands. “We gotta keep going.”

Steve looks up at him, spreading his hands helplessly. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I mean,” Steve looks back up the mountain, frustration clear in every line of his body, “I just can’t.” 

The entire silhouette of the mountain above them is lit up with the red-orange glow of fire, growing ever brighter as the lava creeps closer and closer to them. Bucky stares at Steve, at his half-curled hands, the sweat darkening his shirt, the way every part of him seems to be straining back towards the mountain as if—

Bucky fumbles his twine out of his pocket, tugging it to form the spell for Sight. Steve meets his gaze, and a silent understanding passes between them. They’ve run up against those very secrets they’d spent so many weeks carefully skirting around. And now, the whole mystery is about to unravel right here. Bucky lifts the Sight spell to his eyes and looks at Steve.

The entire mountain is so bright with fire magic, Bucky has to close his eyes against it for a moment. When he opens them again, everything is washed with orange light, almost as if the air itself might spontaneously combust at any moment. Overhead, he sees an enormous figure, a woman made of smoke and fire, walking down the side of the mountain, her dress trailing lava wherever she walks. Bucky stares open-mouthed at Makuahine in her full splendor. She doesn’t look angry or vengeful like he expected her to. Instead, she looks resolute, her eyes turned to the sea just over the horizon. But no matter how calm she seems, she’s still steadily getting closer to them. Bucky shakes his head and focuses on Steve. He stiffens. 

Every single one of Steve’s fate threads are pulled tight almost to the point of snapping, and every single one of them leads back to the mountain. On the ground, just where Steve’s toes are touching, is an unbroken line. A boundary. One that Steve will never be able to step beyond.

It’d been hard to tell when they were on the mountain itself and the threads had led off in every direction pulled to various spots on the mountain. But now that they’re at the base and the furthest edge from the summit, it’s obvious. Steve’s entire life is bound to this mountain. He has no ties to the world beyond the mountain. 

Which should be impossible.

No human being could exist like that. Even if you spend your whole life in one place, your fate threads still won’t be bound by simple geography. Your ties to other people as they enter and leave your life follow them wherever they go in the world. There are infinite paths open to you even if you never venture out to find them. Your fate reaches out far beyond the limited scope of your mortal life because the future is ever-shifting, indeterminate, impermanent until the moment it becomes the past. These are not the threads of fate a human being could ever have. 

And he doesn’t have _time_ to figure this out. It doesn’t matter what Steve’s fate threads are doing because one thing’s clear, he’s going to die here.

“ _Steve,_ ” Bucky says, letting his hands fall to his sides. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers. He casts his gaze back up the mountain, his eyes flicking up to where Bucky now knows the goddess walks, invisible to mortal eyes. He looks back at Bucky. Then he looks at a distant point beyond Bucky. His jaw sets. “You need to go.”

Bucky shakes his head, clenching his fists and scrubbing at his face. “I can’t. You’re going to _die_ here.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” Steve says and sends Bucky a beseeching look. “The town might not know the volcano erupted. They’ll see the smoke and the fire, but they won’t know if that means the lava’s coming towards _them_. There’s been too many false alarms in the past, and everyone relies solely on the wards to tell them if it’s a threat to them. If those are down, they won’t have any _idea_ they’re in danger until it’s too late. They won’t have time to get out unless someone goes and tells them what’s coming.” He bites his lip, glaring at the ground. “And it can’t be me.”

Bucky stares back at Steve, and he’s filled with that very same helplessness Steve had felt just a few minutes earlier. Bring trapped and wanting nothing more than to take one step further, to keep running. And everything in his being is screaming that he can’t. He takes a step closer to Steve, crossing the barrier. Steve makes a horrible, bitten-off sound. 

“Is there any way to get you free?” Bucky asks— _begs_.

“There’s no time. Just _go_.”

Bucky takes a step closer to Steve, cupping his face with his hands. Steve stares up at him with wide eyes. “I can’t just leave you.”

“If you stay,” Steve says, forcing his voice to remain steady, “you save no one. I will die. You will die. The whole town will die.” He shakes Bucky’s hands loose, his face twisted with distress. “You accomplish nothing by staying with me.”

“ _I know_ ,” Bucky says, and it’s like he’s reliving the worst days of his life. It’s like he’s standing in his apartment listening to Natasha asking him to cut his bond with her. And he can’t do this again. He doesn’t think he’ll survive a second time. “I can’t just leave you here.”

“It’s easy. You just—” Steve gulps in a breath. “You take a step and, and then you walk away. You don’t hesitate. You don’t look back. You just keep walking until you’re in town. And then you tell everyone what’s coming. It’s easy.”

“It’s not.”

“I know,” Steve says. “But you have to go anyway.”

Bucky sobs out a breath and presses his forehead against Steve’s. He shakes his head again. “Don’t make me walk away. Not again. I’ve already—” 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You said you did it because you love her. You loved her, and she asked you, so you did it.” Steve wraps his arms around Bucky, letting them both draw comfort from the other. “And I’m asking you now, please. Walk away.”

Bucky’s weeping when he finally steps out of Steve’s embrace. His shoulder is damp where Steve’s face had pressed into it, but when Bucky looks up to meet his gaze, Steve’s expression is calm and resolute. There isn’t a hint of doubt on his face. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says and walks away.

 

* * *

 

There are stories sometimes about what happens to a person’s magic in times of crisis. When the lives of their loved ones are at stake. There are stories of mothers who suddenly turn into lions when their children are threatened, only regaining their true forms once the danger has passed. 

He remembers a colleague of his who’d once talked about the day her childhood home burned down. Her brother had been trapped in the attic. She’d been staring up as the firefighters tried to find a way in, her brother’s calls for help barely audible above the roaring fire. Then, she’d taken a step up as if there was an invisible staircase forming in front of her, and she kept walking up this invisible staircase until she was above a collapsed part of the roof. And she’d reached in and plucked her brother from the burning house before walking back down her staircase.

Bucky’d asked her if she’d been aware what her magic was doing at the time. “I don’t know,” she said and took a thoughtful sip from her mug. “I was so scared, and then, it was like everything was in a dream. I remember knowing that my magic was doing something, but I didn’t think there was anything weird about it. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to just step up onto thin air.”

And so when Bucky arrives in town, he’s dimly aware that his magic is broiling around him, tugging at his body. That his strides are longer and faster than they ever have any right to be. That when he sees a person walking through the quiet streets and calls out his warning to them, his voice tolls through the entire town like a church bell. That he only has to repeat himself three times before the whole town is streaming out of the buildings and towards the docks. That even the fishermen out at sea hear his warning and return to the harbor to help carry their neighbors to safety. That they return much faster than they should as if the very tides themselves have altered their course.

But none of it seems strange to him.

He watches everyone gather on the docks to board the motley fishing boats, and he’s dimly aware that there must be some horrible expression on his face. A child passes him, one of the kids he met here earlier, and she tugs at his hand asking him why he’s crying. He hurries her along so that she rejoins her mother. He doesn’t tell her that he left a man, a friend, a maybe-something-more, to die.

Bucky doesn’t step on the boat. Instead, after he’s sure everyone will be safe, he turns back around to go find Steve. His legs eat up the distance like it’s nothing. In fact, it seems like they’re not touching the ground at all. He doesn’t feel the heat from the fire against his skin. It doesn’t touch him. It doesn’t affect him. Even as the world burns down around him, all that matters is getting back to Steve.

He doesn’t even have to consciously pull at his magic before his eyes slide into the Sight. He sees the goddess again, continuing her stately procession down the mountain. It’s an unexpected relief that she hasn’t reached the base yet, and only then does it begin to register how impossibly fast Bucky had made it to the town and back. It’s a half-hour drive from the base of the mountain to the town limits, and he’d made it there and back on foot in a fraction of the time. 

He sees the red glow of the mountain’s fire magic. He sees the dark spots where the yellow wards used to be like streetlights gone dark. And he sees golden threads spidering out over the mountain, all leading back to one bright point at the very edges of it. 

Bucky comes to a stop next to Steve, doesn’t realize that he was flying until the feathers fall from his limbs and he’s wholly human once again. Steve is sitting cross-legged, his knees brushing up against the boundary. He’s facing the mountain, calmly watching the tide of lava creep ever closer. The area is surprisingly untouched by the fire raging everywhere else, but it will spread here eventually. If Steve somehow survives the lava, the fire will certainly take him. Bucky takes a step forward and sits on the ground next to Steve. 

Steve startles, reeling away. “ _Bucky_ ,” he says, horrified. “You shouldn’t be here.” 

“Well, I am.” Steve is still a bright gold figure in his vision, so he blinks away his Sight until it’s normal Steve, staring at him with horror. There are feathers scattered all around them, and it strikes Bucky how really fucking weird it is that up until a minute ago, he was flying.

“I told you to warn the town,” Steve hisses, his eyes blazing.

“And I did. They’ve all boarded their boats and escaped. I made sure of that myself.”

“And you should’ve gone with them.”

Bucky levels a look at Steve. There’s a calm that’s settled over him, completely unshakeable. “Maybe I should’ve, but I didn’t.”

Steve jumps to his feet, grabbing hold of Bucky’s arm, trying to haul him over the boundary line. “You’re going to _die_ , Bucky.”

“You’re gonna die too, Steve.”

Steve shakes his head and pulls harder at Bucky’s arm, but he refuses to be moved. “It’s not the same. You have a life to live. A job, a home, friends—a _whole world_ outside this stupid mountain. You’d throw all of that away for a guy you barely know?”

Bucky stands and reaches over to grab his wrist, gently tugging it until Steve loosens his grip. And then it’s just Bucky holding Steve’s wrist, his thumb pressed into his pulse point, feeling the way his heart rate spikes up into panic. “I would, yeah.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” Steve snaps. “You have to go.”

“No, I’m staying. I left once already and did what you asked me to do. And now it’s my turn to ask you to let me stay.”

Steve glares at him. “Let you die, you mean.”

“I did what you asked. Now it’s my turn to ask. Let me stay.”

“What I asked you was _necessary_ ,” Steve says, shaking his head vigorously. “This is—it’s just pointless! You’re asking me to let you die a completely needless death because what? You don’t want to live anymore?” 

Above them, there’s a loud crack as a tree tips over. They both look up to see lava just beginning to spill over the ridge above them, making its way toward them. A hot blast of air rushes past them, sending both of them coughing. Long drowning minutes pass before the air clears, and they can breathe again. Volcanic gases—breathing too much of it would be enough to kill them both. Steve renews his efforts to push Bucky towards safety.

“I do want to live,” Bucky says.

Steve beats a hand against Bucky’s chest. “Then _go_.”

“No.”

“ _Bucky_.” Steve stares up at him with desperation. “Is this—is this about her?” he asks. 

“Wha—Natasha?”

“Natasha,” Steve says, testing out the name in his mouth, and Bucky realizes that this is the first time he’s ever said her name aloud. Steve sets his jaw. “I know how much it must hurt to lose a soulmate. And I know the prospect of losing someone else must be terrifying so soon after. But that doesn’t mean you should die.” 

Steve’s hands are shaking, and he looks like he’s on the verge of breaking down, but he presses on. “ _Please_ , Bucky. Live another day. It’s going to be hard, but you’ll find someone else. Someday. You’ll meet another person, and you’ll look back on this moment and be glad you chose to live.” He presses a hand against Bucky’s cheek and says, “You were the one who said you don’t need to be someone’s soulmate to fall in love with them.”

Bucky reaches up and grabs the hand touching his cheek, and now he’s holding both of Steve’s hands in his own. He brings it down and presses a kiss against the underside of his wrist. “I know that,” he says.

Steve closes his eyes and sighs quietly, an almost imperceptible melting in him. Still, his voice is firm when he says, “Don’t.”

“Maybe I will meet someone else,” Bucky says. “I thought I wouldn’t find anyone after Natasha, and then I met you.”

“You don’t love me,” Steve insists. “You _can’t._ ”

“Unfortunately, it’s not up to you. It’s my choice and my choice alone.” 

“It isn’t up to me, but Bucky, it isn’t up to you either.” Steve lets out a breath and rubs a hand over his face. His body is stooped with exhaustion. “You think you’re in love, but it’s—it’s just social conditioning. You spent your whole life waiting for someone. And all around you, everyone’s telling you that the moment you see them, you’ll fall fast and you’ll fall hard. You’re _primed_ to love someone instantly, fervently, without even an inkling of who they are. Because if you don’t love your soulmate at first sight, you’re afraid there must be something wrong with you.” 

Steve looks down at their joined hands, and there’s something like heartache and sympathy in his face, a raw emotion unlike anything Bucky’s ever seen before. He whispers, “And then you lost her. And you don’t know what to do with yourself now that she’s gone. You don’t know what to do with the creeping terror of spending the rest of your life alone. But Bucky, I can’t ever be that for you. I think you wish that I’ll be enough to fill this loss, but I can’t. I can’t ever be what she was to you. I’ll never be your soulmate.”

“I,” Bucky says, feeling as lost as he did the first time he set foot on this mountain months ago, “I still love you.”

“I know you do,” Steve murmurs. “But enough to die for me? A man you’ve known less than half a year? You shouldn’t.” He casts his gaze back up the mountain where the lava is steadily drawing closer. From this distance, Bucky can feel its heat on his skin. Steve looks down and says, “I won’t have you die because of me. Don’t make me bear that burden.”

Bucky stares at him. “Even if there are doubts, even if whatever I’m feeling isn’t real,” he says, “I still don’t want to leave you.”

“Then we’re at an impasse,” Steve says, his eyes tracking the ever closer progress of the lava. They have bare minutes left before it swallows them up, and Bucky can’t seem to find it in himself to be afraid. After everything that happened today, he finds that he’s wrung the emotion dry. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Guess so.”

Steve studies Bucky for a long time, his gaze pensive. And then he seems to come to a decision, whatever that might be. He straightens up and squares his shoulders. “We both die here,” Steve says, taking a step towards the lava, “or neither of us do.”

He starts striding forward as if there wasn’t a giant swell of lava coming directly at them. “Steve,” Bucky says. “What the hell are you doing?”

Steve ignores him and keeps walking, and Bucky finds that he does still have a little fear left in him. Steve keeps going until he’s almost at the edge of the lava. From where Bucky’s standing, he can see the way Steve’s skin turns red and starts to blister from the heat.

And then, Steve opens his mouth to speak. 

“Makuahine,” he says, his voice ringing out for what seems like miles. “A debt has yet to be repaid.”

For a moment, the lava continues to push closer, and then, suddenly, there’s a pause. An imperceptible slowing in its forward momentum. “ _Very well._ ” The voice is more movement than sound, reverberating through his bones, rattling his teeth together. Three syllables, and it’s enough to almost send Bucky sinking to his knees, black spots crowding his vision.

Then, the lava finally overtakes them. 

It floods around Steve and Bucky like water, faster than before as if suddenly eager to reach its destination. It splashes against his torso, submerging his legs completely. The currents inside it tug at him gently as the lava presses past them towards the coastline. And they’re both completely unharmed by it. Bucky stares with open-mouthed shock as he stands knee deep in yellow-hot lava. Like it’s nothing more harmful than standing in the middle of a river. His clothes don’t so much as smoke at the contact.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Bucky says.

Steve wades over to him, splashing lava droplets everywhere. His skin is shining almost as brightly as the lava all around him, as if he’d been bathing in the stuff. It’s the same strange golden light Bucky sees whenever he looks at Steve with his Sight, except this time, Bucky’s looking at him with mortal eyes. He’s _magnificent_. 

Bucky stares at him. “You’re—” he starts to say, but he has no idea how to finish the thought.

It’s all almost too much to comprehend. Every instinct in him is telling him that for the first time, he has all the pieces of the puzzle. His mind keeps running through all of it, trying to make sense of it all. 

How easily Steve had called in a favor from one of the old gods. How familiarly he talked about her in the first place. How strangely Steve’s magic reacted to Bucky when he touched him for the first time. How he’s apparently bound to this mountain and can’t step foot outside it. How he doesn’t have a red string of fate at all. In fact, all of Steve’s fate threads seem to be bound to a single aspect, a single fixed place, static in a way that’s wholly unnatural to the mortal eye, almost akin to—

“A god.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s not like that,” Steve says, looking down and away. They’d clambered up onto a nearby rocky outcrop which is just high enough to let them sit clear of the lava flow. Their feet can just barely dip into the lava from where they dangle down. Steve kicks at the surface, sending out little eddies of red around him. Almost the way a child would splash water in a lake. It’s a bizarre juxtaposition of images. 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “So you’re human.”

Steve winces. “Kinda?”

“Mortal?”

“Yes,” Steve immediately says, then tacks on, “but also no.”

Bucky rubs his temples. “Well that’s enlightening,” he says.

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m starting to get that.”

Steve gnaws a little at his lower lip. “I’m not very good at this,” he admits.

Bucky’s skin prickles, and he looks away guiltily. It’d be pretty hypocritical for him to criticize Steve for not quite knowing how to talk about a secret he’d kept close to his chest for gods know how long. Hell, it’s been a little over a year since Natasha left, and he can already feel all the right words drying up in his throat. He’d managed to stumble through it when he talked to his therapist and then to Steve, but it hadn’t gotten anywhere near capturing everything. The whole raw truth is slowly calcifying in his chest. And Steve has so many more years of silence to chip away at.

They watch the river of lava flood down to the sea. The rock they’re sitting on is high enough for them to glimpse the ocean beyond the treetops. There’s the scattered boats drifting just beyond the town docks, dark against the glare of the sun reflecting off the water. It strikes Bucky as strange that they would linger to watch their homes be destroyed rather than sail further away to safety.

“Why does the goddess owe you a favor?” he asks.

“Only humans have red strings of fate, you know. No one else,” Steve says instead of answering. “Not gods, not shifters nor cold men. It’s one of the simplest litmus tests when you’re not sure.”

Bucky tilts his head. He hadn’t known. Not really. There isn’t much room for people who wear other people’s faces in polite society. His whole world is populated by mortal folk and neighborhood gods, and he’s never really seen much beyond that. “So that means,” he says, “you’re not—”

“Not human? Not really, not anymore.”

“But you used to be.”

Steve kicks his legs a couple times. “Yeah,” he says. “Have you ever wondered about that process? How men become gods?”

“I guess it’s given to them most of the time. It’s a reward of sorts.”

“Of sorts,” Steve repeats. “There’s a lot you have to give up to become immortal. Well, functionally immortal. True immortality is just a pipe dream. Even gods die eventually.”

Bucky stares at his face in profile. There’s still some gold light seeping out of his skin like he hadn’t quite managed to wash it all off. His lashes flicker as he looks up to meet Bucky’s gaze. Then it clicks. “It was never something you lost,” he breathes. “Your red string—it was given willingly. Why?”

“She was dying. And she was in love.” Steve nods at the lava surrounding them on all sides, at the invisible figure of the goddess pushing ever closer to the sea. “For as long as she existed, she’s always loved the woman of the sea, Kupuna.”

Steve looks up, and Bucky follows his gaze to where a giant plume of smoke is rising in the distance. The lava had finally reached the sea. “By the time I met her, it had been thousands of years since she last saw Kupuna, and she was heartsick and weary. I found her curled in the crater of this mountain in what very well could’ve been the last days of her life. I was a stranger to this land and young, very young. I understood only vaguely what it was to be in love. I had no clear idea how deeply her love for Kupuna ran, but one thing I did know was that the land was dying along with Makuahine. I told her that if she truly meant to die here, she should at least be able to visit Kupuna one last time.”

“I think if I had offered this at any point in the millennia before, she wouldn’t have accepted. Makuahine was bound by her duty to guard the entrance to the realm of the gods at the summit of her mountain. She diligently built the land, expanded it, made its soils fertile. It had once been work she did joyfully with Kupuna by her side, but now, it was work she did alone. I promised her that I would temporarily take her place and guard the entrance to the realm of the gods, so she could meet her lover in the sea.”

“It was magnificent to behold,” Steve breathes, his eyes distant as he relives the memory. “All that lava rushing down to the ocean, the two meeting in an enormous burst of ash and steam. The earth roiled and shuddered, the ocean flooded up the coastline as if Kupuna had grabbed hold of Makuahine and refused to let her go. And when Makuahine returned, she was so— _joyful_. You could see that she hadn’t been this happy for a very long time. She was a very old god by then, and she’d spent most of her life away from the one being she cared for. But in that moment, I could see what she must’ve been like in her youth, when she was nothing more than fire running along the cracks in the seafloor. And I was adrift then. I had very little purpose or direction in my life, and this was the first meaningful thing I’d ever done—giving happiness to this goddess.”

“So you offered your red string to her,” Bucky whispers.

“I did,” Steve says. “And for a long time, I didn’t regret it. I didn’t really know what I had committed myself to, and frankly, I didn’t care. Taking her burden onto myself, binding myself to this mountain gave me meaning that I’d never had before. I was so goddamn proud of myself. I’d restored a goddess’s happiness and gained a lifelong friend in the process. The land flourished, the people flourished, and I was quite content with spending eternity here on this mountain with Makuahine as my friend and companion.”

His face tightens, and it’s the first time that Bucky really sees the age in him. The lifetimes he’d seen. “It was over half a century after I came to the mountain when my soulmate found me. It was a shock for the both of us. I hadn’t expected to ever meet her at all, and she hadn’t expected to find a man who hadn’t aged in seventy years.” He looks down, his knuckles going white as his hands tightened around each other. “And that was when I learned the toll my actions had taken. I didn’t feel the effects myself because I was the same man I’d been the day I gave up my red string. The same body, the same mind, I was frozen in time. But it wasn’t the same for her. A soulmate rejecting their very connection to you—it’s an awful thing. It slowly drove her insane over the course of decades, and when I met her, I could feel the agony and the madness in her. She suffered so much because a stranger she’d never met made this decision for her.”

Steve glares at his lap. He shoves a handful of stones over the edge so they plunk heavily into the lava below. Bucky reaches out tentatively and places a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You didn’t know,” he says. “You couldn’t have known that would happen.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know. I jumped headfirst into this without considering the consequences. I grabbed onto the first thing that felt substantial—important—and I never once thought about what I was giving up. Maybe there’s something more for me out there, but I’ll never know now. I’ve lived so long, and I’ve only seen a fraction of the world.” He looks out to the sea. “ _I miss it._ ”

“Steve,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t know what he can possibly say. 

Steve turns to him as if noticing him for the first time. He’d been so caught up in telling the story, he forgot his audience. He shakes off Bucky’s hand and leans into his space. “Don’t you get it?” he says. “You don’t know what you’re giving up till you lose it. There’s so much out there for you, and you were just going to give it all up for what? Me? The first thing that you think might make you happy after losing your soulmate? You were going to give up your whole life for the first good-enough thing that came your way. Is that really worth dying for?”

For a moment, Bucky is at a complete loss for words. He wants to say that this isn’t what this is about. This isn’t him floundering in the void left by his soulmate, grasping for something, _anything_ , to give his life meaning. But isn’t that why he took the academic sabbatical? Why he was so interested in Steve in the first place? Why he let himself become engrossed in everything Steve was? His whole presence hinted at something more, something greater. An intellectual challenge that could’ve filled Bucky’s life with drive and purpose at a time when he needed it most. 

Bucky shakes his head. His head is so full of everything he wants to express to Steve, to make him believe that this isn’t just a fluke, some insane half-baked idea stuck in Bucky’s head. “It’s not just—you’re not only ‘good enough’. You’re more than that. So much more,” he says, and it’s completely inadequate.

“But how do you _know?_ ” Steve insists. “How many times have you even been in love?”

“How many times have _you_ been in love?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Isn’t it? Do you love me, Steve?”

“I—” He looks wide-eyed. A cornered animal. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It kinda does. I’d say it matters a helluva lot.”

“Even if I did,” Steve says, “I can’t give you what you want. I can’t give you the kind of love you’d expect from a soulmate. I don’t have that kind of devotion in me.”

And that’s when Bucky realizes that it’d been a very long time since the last time Steve was in love. “Steve, it’s not about what I think you can give me. I didn’t love Natasha because of what I thought she would give me.”

“You loved her because she was your soulmate. You love her still.” His voice is bitter. 

“I loved her because she was who she was. Not what she added to my life, not what she could give me—she wasn’t in a position to give me anything. I spent what time I had with her that I could, and when it was time for her to leave, I let her go. I don’t ask for much.”

Steve shakes his head, a spark of animal fear in his eyes. “It’s still too much. Whatever it is you want, I can’t give it. My whole life, my fate is bound to this mountain.” He takes a breath and then says, “You didn’t answer me. You didn’t say how many times you’ve been in love before.”

“It doesn’t make a difference,” he says. Steve presses his lips together, his brow drawing down. Bucky sighs. “Once.”

“Your soulmate.”

Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose. “It always comes back to her, doesn’t it? That part of my life is over.”

“You’d be an idiot to discount the importance of your soulmate. No matter how little time you spent with her, it _lingers_. It changes you fundamentally. There will always be a part of you that holds onto it.” Steve meets his gaze, a challenging glint in his eye. “How do you even know you’re in love without your red string telling you?”

“I just know.”

“But you don’t know why or how. It’s just a feeling you get.”

“People can fall in love without their soulmates,” Bucky snaps.

“They can,” Steve says. “But it’s not easy like soulmates are. It’s complicated and messy and painful. Fate isn’t aligning itself to smooth over the rough patches. You don’t fit together as easily as you wish you could. It takes work, a lot of blood and tears to keep things going. It’s a choice that you make and continue to make every moment of your life. The choice to put in the time, to weather the storms, to argue and cry and go on another day. And it’s so easy to decide it’s not worth the effort.”

Steve draws in another breath, hitching slightly on the inhale. He swipes a hand across his eyes, but when he starts talking again, his voice is unwavering. “You love your work, you love keeping your mind active. And sure, you say it’s worth it now. It’s fine to give me everything, but can you say for sure that you’ll feel the same way years down the line? When you’re here and there isn’t so much as a library within a hundred mile radius? It’s not enough to just feel that you’re in love. You have to know _why_ you’re in love. Why it’s worth fighting for. Why you even bother when the warm fuzzy feelings fade away, and all you can think about is how angry you are with me. There has to be a reason beyond it feeling nice right now because it _won’t always be nice._ ”

 

* * *

 

Bucky goes on a walk, following the river of lava down to the ocean. He feels unmoored, his thoughts disconnected and scattered. Steve’s words ring through his head as he tries to chew through it all. He’s in love with Steve Rogers. Probably. Maybe. Is it enough? No matter how strong his love for Natasha was, it still didn’t save them. Can he really say for sure that these fledgling feelings are enough to span a lifetime? It’s impossible to tell. Just over an hour ago, he’d been ready to die for Steve. But now, he’s not sure if even that’s enough.

So Bucky’s walking.

The fires have already started to die down. The trees here are hardy and adapted to surviving these things, and the lands are still damp from the recent rains. The lava flows, though more sluggishly than before. It’s more red than yellow now, its currents now wrinkled with black. Everything is surprisingly peaceful, but it’s a long walk. By the time, Bucky reaches the town, it’s nightfall. 

Some of the boats had returned, bobbing gently against the pier. There are people standing on the beach, looking to the destroyed buildings. Everywhere he looks, the streets are black with lava hardened into rock. It slopes up and down in gentle undulations. It almost looks like he’s looking at a black-and-white picture of a storm swell, the surface of the ocean frozen in time. It’s clear which houses didn’t have fireproofing wards on them because they’d been charred black. But even then, most of the buildings in town are ruined, the floors covered with dark rock from where the lava had flooded through the windows and doors.

Bucky watches as the Kamakai walk gingerly through their quiet town. They retrieve the belongings they weren’t able to take during the initial evacuation. Bucky walks among them, lending a hand when its needed. He puts out the few scattered fires remaining. He helps a woman climb through the window of her house because her front door had been buried under lava rock. He and two other men lift a wooden bureau out of the remains of another house. It’s surprisingly intact considering the rest of the house had burned down.

Their faces are filled with grief at the loss of their homes, but also…reverent. They walk carefully and speak in low voices. Some of the children flit through the streets, leaving flowers tucked in the cracked lava rock. 

In the surviving houses, Bucky can’t help but notice how tidy they are. The floors had been swept clean, the furniture dusted, the lingering scent of cleaning spells under the metal and sulfur smell of lava. There are small bundles carefully wrapped in broad leaves left on tabletops. Each home had been carefully neatened as if every person in town was preparing for an honored guest. And they were. The goddess—Makuahine—had walked through these streets, visiting each house, accepting the gifts offered to her, as she made her way to the ocean.

And Bucky may never fully understand the mingled sorrow and joy in the Kamakai’s faces as they move through the remains of their town, but he can at least get some small sense of it. Because Makuahine had built the very land they lived on with the same power that destroyed their homes. He’d understood intellectually that Makuahine was a goddess of dual aspects, of life and death, of destruction and creation. But there’s thinking of it abstractly in the safety of his university office, and then there’s confronting the reality of it, seeing the truth in all its complexity for himself. 

He comes to a stop, realizing that he’s passed the town limits, and he’s now standing on one of the beaches. There’s sand spilling into his shoes, the damp of the ocean seeping into his socks. For a moment, he watches the steady push and pull of the tide and listens to the sound of water tumbling over itself. 

He wonders if this is what drew Makuahine and Kupuna to each other. By all logic, they should’ve despised each other as natural enemies. Fire and water. Yet, they’re strikingly similar in their movement, both flowing in rivers and waves. Perhaps they recognized this from the start and loved each other for it. He wonders how they knew it would work out.

Bucky looks to the plume of smoke and steam billowing up from further down the beach where lava continues to stream into the ocean. He takes off his shoes and peels off his socks, carrying them with his fingers hooked into the heels. Then he starts to walk barefoot toward the place where the two goddesses meet. The sand sinks beneath his feet, pushing between his toes, flicking up behind him every time he takes a step.

He stops when he reaches a jumble of large rocks that marks the end of the beach. It extends in a short overhang just above the surface of the ocean. And there’s the goddess. Makuahine kneels on the overhang. Her dress flares out around her, swirling around her legs, dripping into the ocean where it hisses quietly at the contact. The wind whips her hair back, the gold of it stark against her basalt skin. Her whole body is tipped forward as she reaches her hand to touch the water splashing up from the waves crashing against the rocks below. 

Bucky blinks. Amidst the steam, the rushing water, and the sea spray, he glimpses the figure of another woman. Her hands are folded into Makuahine’s, her head tipped up to look into her lover’s eyes. They’re talking, but Bucky can’t hear what they’re saying from this distance. He gets the feeling that even if he were standing right next to them, he would only hear the wind, the waves, the crackling of lava. 

Makuahine leans further forward and cradles the sea goddess’s face between her palms. They press their foreheads together. Her mouth moves as she says something else. Then she tips forward completely, slipping effortlessly into the ocean, sending up a large burst of steam that obscures them both from view. It broils outward while the ocean hisses and roars. If any living thing were to touch the water now, it’d be boiled alive. Bucky’s eyes waters, his lungs feeling tight. He’s dimly aware that if Steve hadn’t asked for the goddess’s protection, Bucky would’ve died here from breathing in the toxic spirit of salt clouds. Makuahine’s very presence is so powerful, simply witnessing her meet her lover is a lethal exercise.

It’s not long before she emerges from the waves. Her expression is calm as she brushes water from her face, shaking it out of her hair. The power rolling off of her recedes as she starts to wade over to the beach. Her hair darkens. Her skin shifts from the black of lava rock to warmer, more human tones. The heat of her dress cools to cloth. It’s not unlike the dresses he’s seen some of the older women in town wear. In fact, if he hadn’t seen her change before his eyes, he would’ve thought she was just another one of the Kamakai.

“Would you mind driving me back up to Haleakua?”

Bucky blinks, and he remembers a moment, weeks ago, when a boy had given him a warning. _Don’t refuse her a ride if she asks._ “I don’t have a car,” he says. It’s somewhere on the volcano. Probably destroyed by lava along with Steve’s house and everything in it. 

Makuahine hums lightly and starts to stroll up the beach towards town. Bucky follows along, unsure of what else to do. They skirt around the edges of town, following lanes of newly made basalt that wander over straight asphalt roads. They come to a stop next to the burnt-out shell of a car buried in lava rock. With a touch of her hand, the rock cracks and crumbles away, freeing the car. 

Makuahine looks at Bucky expectantly.

It’s still the blasted corpse of a car, the paint bubbled and cracked from heat, the rubber tires melted, the upholstery burned away to nothing. The engine is probably just as much of a charred mess as everything else. By all rights, the car shouldn’t run at all. Makuahine slips into the passenger seat and clicks her seatbelt into place. The polyester strap is almost completely melted, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She looks at Bucky again. He sighs and slides into what used to be the drivers seat, then he sets his hands on the steering wheel. The engine grumbles as it starts. Somehow. 

They drive over the ridges of lava rock onto what’s left of the road and start their slow bumpy progress back up the mountain. It’s probably one of the most awkward drives Bucky’s ever been in. Makuahine spends the first ten minutes of it with her hand tucked under her chin as she watches the landscape pass by. In his peripheral vision, her features seem to be constantly changing. At some points, she looks no older than Bucky, her hair thick and shiny, her lashes dark against her cheek. At other points, the gleam of her hair is steelier as if it’s streaked through with grey. She frowns and the lines on her face deepen until he can see every millennia she’s ever lived.

“So uhh,” Bucky says, breaking the silence. “Kupuna—she seems nice.”

Makuahine casts a glance at him, one dark eyebrow tilted up. “Nice,” she repeats. 

Bucky rubs a hand against the back of his neck. He’s had to make small talk with gods before. Hell, he might even be good at it. But there’s talking to the droopy-eyed patron of conical paper cups, and then there’s talking to the primordial incarnation of a fucking volcano. Everything he could possibly say feels utterly inane.

“How did you know you loved her?” Bucky blurts out because he just loves digging this awkward hole deeper.

“I came into the world at the bottom of the ocean. The first thing I remember was the feeling of her arms wrapped around me. There’s never been a time when I didn’t know I loved her.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, feeling oddly disappointed. “Alright then.”

Makuahine smiles and tilts her head. Her face softens into the youthful roundness of a teenager. “What did you really want to ask me?”

Bucky rubs his nail against the rim of the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess I just wondered how you’d know if you were in love without a red string.”

“It’s rather presumptuous asking the divine about mortal notions of love and fate,” Makuahine says, her eyes crinkling. “I can see why he’s fond of you.”

Bucky snorts. “I wouldn’t call it _fond_ ,” he says. “And I thought you might know better than anyone else. You’ve been in love with Kupuna for centuries.”

Makuahine studies him for a moment before turning her eyes back out the window. Her fingers twine through her hair. “We built this very land together. Her waters will always wash against my shores. Her rains will always fall on my skin, and her waves will always crash against my cliffs. She’s eternal in a way that no mortal will ever be able to comprehend. Mortal emotions burn brightly and briefly like the candlenut’s flame. How can these two loves possibly compare? The way you love is as mysterious to me as the love a lehua flower has for the ʻōhiʻa tree.”

“Yeah, it’s about as mysterious as that to me too,” Bucky says and blows out a breath.

“Is that not the most joyful part of being mortal?” Makuahine asks. “To spend a lifetime learning the world, learning people, learning love. Few things are strange to me, but you, you have the privilege of discovering everything anew.”

“Yeah, you think it might be nice, but knowing jack shit’s kinda terrifying.”

Makuahine laughs, full-bodied, the sound like the thunder of rocks rolling downhill. “Do you think you’re the only one who fears the unknown? It’s a fundamentally human sentiment.”

“You don’t ever feel afraid?” Bucky asks.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Makuahine shift again. Her back is stooped with age, her hands curled into themselves, her face pockmarked, her hair shot through white. She smiles at him, her teeth yellowed and crooked. Like this, she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. Her gaze grows hazy as she thinks.

“I slept once a long time ago,” Makuahine says. “In my dreams, I traveled to the bottom of the ocean where Kupuna could wrap herself around me once again. But as I slept, my fires grew cold, the caldera fell silent, and eventually, I had to wake to return to my duties. But now, my work is done. I built the land and nourished its people. It’s time for me to rest.” She smiles ruefully. “In truth, I don’t know what will happen to me after I go to sleep this last time, but neither do I fear it. Not like you would at such a prospect.”

“You can’t do that!” Bucky protests. His hands are shaking. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel to steady himself. “Steve said the land would die without you. He sacrificed his own red string to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Makuahine simply nods, as if there was nothing terrible about what Bucky had just said. “Yes, in time, the land will die as all things eventually will. Kupuna will send her waters flowing over my shores, and one day the land will sink back into the sea. Even the highest crater of this mountain will eventually return to the ocean. And my body will be together with her once again. This time for eternity. In the meantime, my spirit will reside with her while my body sleeps.”

“You _promised_ Steve,” Bucky insists. “He gave you his red string, his whole life. You can’t just abandon him. At the very least, you could release him from his bond to the mountain.”

Makuahine casts a glance at him. “Do you think I could?”

“You were the one who bound him here in the first place.”

“No,” Makuahine says. “What bound him was his sacrifice and his decision. If he hadn’t chosen it, I would not be able to do anything.”

“What if he doesn’t want to be here anymore? What if he chooses now to leave?”

“That alone is not enough.”

There’s something hot and tight building up in the back of his throat. He feels like he’s on the verge of crying just from the frustration alone. “So you’re telling me he’s trapped here forever. Just because he chose to help you a thousand years ago.”

“I’m simply telling you that there are two vital components to a bond like this. Choice and sacrifice. I can provide neither of these things.” She studies Bucky closely. “Tell me, how did you sever your red string?”

He blinks. “What?”

“It’s no simple feat. How did you do it?”

“I—I was just following an old legend.”

“And what did that legend say?”

“It was about a couple,” Bucky says slowly. “They forged swords together. Beautiful powerful swords. The emperor one day demanded a sword be made for him, or they die at his hands. The couple set out to forge the requested sword, but the fires of their furnace couldn’t burn hot enough to melt the ore. And they realized that they would both soon die. Out of desperation, the wife cast herself into the furnace, and finally the fire grew hot enough to melt the ore. The husband grieved for his lost love and completed their task alone. He was able to forge two swords, one representing himself, one representing his wife. Twin blades forged from devotion and loss of love. We used those swords to cut the red string.”

“It wasn’t the swords that did it,” Makuahine says. “It was the choice and the sacrifice. They chose to forge the sword together, and then she sacrificed herself to complete the impossible task. They would not have been able to accomplish it otherwise. So what did _you_ choose? What did you sacrifice?”

Bucky slows the car to a stop. They’re back at the base of the mountain. For a moment, he sits there in silence as he mulls the question over. He’d never really thought of what happened in these terms, but in hindsight, it does make a remarkable amount of sense. 

After a while, he says, “I chose to sever my bond with my soulmate. I sacrificed the happiness I could’ve had with her.”

“And that is why you were able to accomplish this. If you’d chosen to cut the red string, but had not resolved to sacrifice the life you would share with her, the blade would’ve been too dull to sever the bond.” Makuahine opens the car door and slips out. “Think on it,” she tells Bucky before walking away.

 

* * *

 

He finds Steve right where he left him. 

Sitting on the rocky outcrop overlooking the now cold river of lava, his legs folded against his chest, his chin resting on top of his knees. He’s staring off at some distant point. Bucky slows to a stop next to him and slings his hands in his pockets before settling on the ground. After a time, Steve notices his presence and looks up at him wearily. There’s ash smudged across his face, his hair is matted with dirt and sweat. He looks like a mess. Bucky probably looks about the same.

“I’m pretty scared, you know,” Bucky says. “I’m afraid to make promises to you because I don’t want to break them. I don’t know what will happen.” He looks down at Steve, meeting his gaze. “But I think you don’t know what’s going to happen either. I think neither of us know what the hell we’re doing, and that scares the shit out of you just as much as it does me. Because I don’t think you’ve ever really been in love like this before either.”

“I’m not scared,” Steve says, stubborn as ever.

Bucky tilts a smile at him, affection welling up inside him. “Okay, maybe you aren’t,” he murmurs. “I was just thinking about what you said earlier. About how you’re worried I’m just latching onto you because I’m scared there won’t be anything better that comes along later. And maybe you’re right, but I think you’re worried that you might be holding onto me for the wrong reasons too. I think you’ve been up here alone for a very long time, and it’s been a while since anything good came along for you too. I think you might not trust yourself to make the right decision anymore.”

A shudder runs through Steve at Bucky’s words. He looks away. “That just means it’s even more of a bad idea. We’ll both just end up hurting each other.”

“And I think there’s a very real chance that we’ll spend the rest of our lives being unhappy if we keep waiting until we feel ready. We probably won’t ever feel ready. But it’s worth it to take the leap of faith anyway.”

“And what if it’s not worth it?” Steve asks quietly.

“Then it is what it is. It’s enough to have tried, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” Steve says bitterly. “It’s easy for _you_ to make grand declarations like this. You can walk away from this any time you want. You can go back home and start over again. You can leave all this behind and forget. I don’t have that luxury.” Steve’s voice wavers ever so slightly. “If she comes back to you, you’d go back with her in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t be able to help it. And I wouldn’t ask you to choose me over your own soulmate.”

No, Bucky thinks. Even if she came back, they’d already sacrificed their life together to break the bond. Even if he wanted to, he can never have that again. Natasha probably understood this long before he did. “She won’t come back.”

“But what if she does?” Steve insists.

And that’s when Bucky realizes that maybe he’s been going about this the wrong way the whole time. 

Because despite the fact that Steve is basically one step removed from godhood, he’s still at a disadvantage in this. Bucky can choose to enter his life, and he can just as easily choose to leave it. Even if Steve wants to leave Bucky behind, he never can because he’s bound to this mountain. As long as this remains the same, Bucky will always be the one with the power to determine their future. Steve isn’t afraid of stepping into a relationship neither of them aren’t ready for. He’s afraid of letting himself love Bucky and not being able to stop him if he decides to leave him behind. He stands to lose so much more than Bucky. 

Bucky’s red string sits on his knee, and he stares down at it. It’s still tied up into the furniture moving spell from earlier. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m not being fair to you. I’m just cornering you into a place where you can’t make any choices.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, relieved. “That’s exactly it.”

Bucky nods and looks down, noticing that he’s absent-mindedly fiddling with his red string. He starts tugging apart the knots as he thinks things over. Choice and sacrifice, Makuahine had said. The wife in the story had sacrificed her life. Bucky and Natasha had sacrificed their happiness. And Steve had sacrificed his red string. 

In a way, he’d also sacrificed his humanity. At least, that’s what Steve had implied—humans have red strings, everything else doesn’t. Therefore, to love and be loved in this manner is to be human. Giving all that up, that’s some powerful magic right there. Makuahine had said that she couldn’t remove Steve’s bond, but she hadn’t said it was impossible.

Choice and sacrifice. They’re the keys to impossible magic. The last of the knots fall away, and Bucky’s left holding the end of his red string. He studies it for a long time. The abrupt way it tapers off, the individual cords woven together to make an elaborate slender plait. He reaches his senses out to follow the magic of it through the string to the base of his little finger then up his arm to the very core of his being. He can feel where Natasha still lives in his chest, the parts of him still holding onto her, hoping that they can be together again even when he knows better. And Bucky’s never really going to be able to move on with his life if he doesn’t let this go. 

He breathes in and takes a leap of faith.

Bucky pinches the tip of his red string and tugs gently. His magic wraps around the lingering hope and pain inside him, and after a moment, his red string starts to unravel. It goes surprisingly easily, and he wonders if Makuahine is beside him silently lending her aid.

There’s a part of himself that starts to feel loose and untethered as he unwinds his red string, a maw opening up inside him unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His magic quivers. It’s like the void that’d been there ever since he and Natasha parted ways, but it’s much, much worse now. Bucky pushes on anyway. 

His hands shake as he pulls apart his red string. The end of it begins to fade away, dissolving into the air. He glances over at Steve who’s too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice what’s happening. Bucky groans quietly, sweat chilling his skin. Somehow, he’s making good progress. Almost half of his red string has been undone already. 

He knows instantly the moment Steve notices. His back stiffens like he’d been electrocuted, a breath punching out of his lungs like something physically struck him. He whips his head around to look down at his left hand where the beginnings of a red string are forming on his little finger. He goes pale, and for a moment, Steve can only stare at the impossible happening right before his eyes. 

“What the fuck,” he says, then turns to Bucky. “Are you seeing this, Bu—” His voice cuts off when he realizes what’s going on. “ _Bucky_.”

He smiles shakily at Steve, but he can’t quite muster up the ability to respond.

“Stop!” Steve grabs ahold of Bucky’s wrist, forcing him to pause midway through. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just, just—choice and sacrifice,” Bucky manages to mumble out.

“I don’t even know what that _means_. Why would you—” Steve breaks off, shaking his head, his eyes wide. Bucky had thought he’d looked terrified when Bucky refused to leave him to die alone, but it’s nothing compared to the raw horror in Steve’s expression now. 

“I’m just—I’m, I’m giving it back to you. Your,” Bucky realizes he’s panting for breath, his head feeling light and dizzy. “Red string. Mortality. Freedom.” He drags in another lungful of air. “You’re human. Again. You can choose now. Can leave here if you want.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Choice and sacrifice,” Bucky grits out. “The two parts. Of impossible magic.”

Steve doesn’t respond for a while, and Bucky looks up at him. He’s switching his gaze back and forth between their hands, each with half a red string. “It’s impossible,” he repeats with a small voice, but he stands up and starts to walk forward anyway. His newly remade red string trails behind him on the ground. 

Steve hesitates just before where the border of the mountain should be. Then he takes another step. It’s the first time in centuries that he’s stepping into the world. Steve wavers there for a moment before a spasm wracks his body and he sinks to his knees, weeping.

After a moment, Bucky limps over to Steve’s side and wraps his arms around him. There’s a hole in his chest like a sucking wound, but he doesn’t care. He managed to give this to Steve. Free him from this ancient bond. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You can go now.” He lets him soak in the warmth of Steve’s body for another moment before he pulls his arms back. If he lets himself stay partially pressed against Steve, well, he thinks he’s allowed a little extra comfort now. 

Bucky picks up the remaining half of his red string again and tries to finish the task, but his hands are shaking too much, his vision going blurry. He plucks helplessly at the string. 

A hand reaches out to grab his, stopping him once again. “Don’t,” Steve says, and he’s still crying. “It’s enough. It’s enough.”

“It’s not,” Bucky mumbles. “I have to—to finish it. Won’t work otherwise.”

Suddenly, Steve’s face is filling his sight. The outer edges of his features are soft and hazy, but Bucky can clearly see his eyes, the water tracking down his face. “You don’t have to.” Two hands touch both sides of his face, and Steve presses a gentle kiss onto his mouth. “This is more than enough.” He kisses him again, and then again. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

“You can choose now,” Bucky says. There’s water smudged across his cheek, and he can’t tell if it’s because he’s also crying. “Whoever you want. You can love.” He clumsily presses his mouth against Steve’s chin. “I—do you love me?”

“You idiot,” Steve says almost fondly.

His hands leave his face, and Bucky nearly whimpers at the loss of contact. He can dimly tell that Steve is fumbling around with something. After a jolt of familiar magic rushes through him, he realizes Steve’s doing something with his red string. Bucky’s vision is greying out.

“What’re you—?” But Steve hushes him.

Bucky shivers and reaches out blindly for Steve. A hand catches his, and bizarrely, the hole in his chest almost seems a little smaller than before. He frowns. He tentatively probes at it with his magic, and it’s—it’s definitely shrinking. Like something else is filling the void. It’s a warm sensation. A feeling of peace and well-being seems to spread out from it until Bucky’s loose-limbed and blissfully relaxed. The hole becomes smaller and smaller until suddenly, it’s not there anymore. Filled in completely. There’s some scars and scratches from when he first severed his red string, but those will likely remain with him for the rest of his life.

Bucky opens his eyes. Steve looks back at him, his expression full of some emotion he can’t identify. There’s a small smile tugging the corner of his mouth up, and Bucky realizes he’s once again seeing exactly what he’s feeling right now reflected back at him in Steve’s face. That deep-rooted serenity like he’s coming home for the first time in years. 

“What did you do?” Bucky whispers.

Steve looks down at their entwined hands, and Bucky follows his gaze. His eyes widen. 

His red string is bright against the skin of his hand right next to the red string standing out just as proudly on Steve’s hand. Their red strings wind around them, looping around their legs. And resting in the middle is a carefully tied knot binding the two strings together. Their souls and their fates forever intertwined.

“This is me choosing you,” Steve says.

“I thought you didn’t want—” Bucky trails off. He has no idea what to say. “You—Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Steve says, his gaze intense. “Gods help me, I’m still terrified as hell. But I’m choosing to love you, and I’m choosing to continue to love you again and again for the rest of my life.”

“If it helps, I’m also pretty scared,” Bucky says. He can’t stop running amazed fingers over the knot of their red strings tied together. He laughs, feeling almost drunk on joy. “I love you too.”

“We have our whole lives ahead of us. A lifetime to learn that neither of us have to be scared of being anymore.”

Bucky smiles down at their newly formed connection, vibrant and strong. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “A whole lifetime with you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I drew a large amount of inspiration from Hawaiian mythology, namely in the inspiration for the central goddess figure, Makuahine, who's based on the volcano goddess Pele. I have taken quite a few creative liberties with her core stories, so I did alter the names involved.
> 
> I'm going to be honest, the writing process for this fic was quite an arduous one. The first draft for this fic got completely wiped out due to a hardware failure on my computer. It just goes to show, always back up your work no matter what! But I do think this fic came out so much the stronger for it, and in hindsight, I think it was a blessing in disguise because it truly gave me the opportunity to refine the plot and themes of this story.
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out my [tumblr](http://jinlinli.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> And be sure to check out [psifiend's](http://psifiend.tumblr.com) and [sorrowingsoldier's](http://sorrowingsoldier.tumblr.com) blogs!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Concerning the Regular Miracles (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16211996) by [earthseraph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseraph/pseuds/earthseraph)
  * [Concerning the Regular Miracles - Art By Psi Fiend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207676) by [psifiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psifiend/pseuds/psifiend)




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